French Open 2018

[Gollum]

17 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

Nole is fast running out of time, because his game matches up favorably against the likes of Zverev, Thiem, Chung etc - they are all Nole-type pushers with younger legs and in the case of Zverev, with a far better serve, while Thiem has a far bigger backhand than Nole ever did. 

Bigger doesn't translate to better, Nole's BH will be in contention for greatest BH of all time with the likes of those of Agassi, Nalbandian, Kuerten etc. Thiem's BH is highly inconsistent and liable to break down on high bouncing surfaces...Nadal is toying with that wing as I type.....huge liability, even Fed's BH back in the day was more robust. 

Edited June 10, 2018 by Gollum
spelling

[Dil Dil India]

On 6/7/2018 at 5:57 PM, I6MTW said:

In uso 18 they are going to enforce the 25 second rule. Let's see what happens there.

That's only for the qualifiers..correct me on this if I am wrong....Nadal will not allow his time violation cheating to be punished before he retires.

[Dil Dil India]

On 6/9/2018 at 1:43 AM, Muloghonto said:

Djokovic is/was the better Michael Chang. Ie, his entire game is based on his exceptional mobility/flexibility. However, like Chang, he does not have any weapons in his game. Federer has a killer serve and a mind for aggressively ending the points (either with his creativity or with his net-play). Nadal has his monster lasso-forehand. Djokovic's game has no weapons. Conversely, his game also had the least 'weaknesses'/never went through a stretch when some of his bread-and-butter shots broke down (like Federer shanking his backhand and Nadal's backhand reliability dipping periodically). 

But at 31, his prime strength - court speed- is gone. Throw in the fact that his shots are now much more underpowered than before and Djokovic is now a world #10-20 level player, who will struggle to put together 7 straight matches of dominance.

 

Djokovic lucked out big time at AO 2013 where predictably he benefited from (and he actually pointed at the wrong mark to induce that decision, disgusting cheater) a bad line call in the last set which would have given Stan the chance to serve for the match and FO 2016 when he should have been disqualified for throwing his racquet which nearly hit a linesman who had to jump out of the way. That's not to mention how he has been getting away with the ridiculous time wasting and deliberate extra loud grunts and ball bouncing on break points...he's won at least 3-4 slams beyond his potential; pathetic cheating pusher. I relish him getting destroyed by mugs whose names hardly any tennis fans even know. Karma for him.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Dil Dil India

[Dil Dil India]

Once again Nadal is being allowed to take a ridiculous amount of time between serves. This is pathetic. He is averaging more than 31 seconds between points, going up to even 45 on BPs. Disgusting, absolute shambles. 

[Gollum]

Congrats to the King of Clay and his fans, 6 slams won by Fedal since AO 2017...who would have thought that was going to happen in 2016 end? I am sure Thiem will only benefit from this experience in a major final, he is definitely going to be a multiple time RG champ. Shot clock needs to be implemented sooner rather than later, sometimes the time wasting borders on the farcical. On to grass next, my favourite part of the tennis season....hope Fed or Nick win SW19 this time. 

Edited June 10, 2018 by Gollum

[zep1706]

Great performance from Rafa in the final, I was expecting a tougher match considering he wasn't really playing that well in this tournament but stepped it up big time today. #17 and not done yet! 

[Gollum]

Every successive RG, Thiem is making real progress...hopefully RG 2019 has his name on the winner's trophy. 

[Muloghonto]

2 hours ago, Gollum said:

Bigger doesn't translate to better, Nole's BH will be in contention for greatest BH of all time with the likes of those of Agassi, Nalbandian, Kuerten etc. Thiem's BH is highly inconsistent and liable to break down on high bouncing surfaces...Nadal is toying with that wing as I type.....huge liability, even Fed's BH back in the day was more robust. 

To me, the greatest backhand of all-time will be Marat Safin's backhand. Nole has everything in his backhand, except for the ability to hit clean winners off of it. His 'winners' are redirects into the open court or ROS winners. 

[Muloghonto]

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

Again don't want to get into the nitty-gritty  but IMO his BH DTL was similar to Nadal's FH when it came to finishing points.

 

The difference between current Nole and 2016 Nadal is stark. Nadal had confidence issues and injury concerns but Nole is mentally switched off. He seems to have lost interest in the game while Nadal was still trying hard to mount a comeback. Pepe Imaz is everything I need to say......this level of change in mentality is hard to come to terms with. Nadal didn't dip below no 10 because he didn't miss that much tennis, besides there were enough points on clay to keep him in the race. Nole had a surgery like Fed and missed out on action, since he couldn't defend his 2016 points he had a tumble in rankings. Recall that even Fed dropped down to world no 17 before the 2017 AO draw because he missed around 6 months of tennis. 

The difference between Nole and Federer's injury time off, is that with Federer, you could immediately see that he's put in a lot of work & practice hours, the moment he stepped on the court at Hopmans Cup in '17. Nole when he came back this year, looked like he came back from a six month binge from Ibiza. No stamina, no energy, body language was 'i wanna get off the court', etc. 

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

Glad you recognize the offensive ball striking abilities of Nole in the pre 2011 period, he was very exciting to watch from the baseline back then. As you said he had to tweak his game to compete with Fedal. He became fitter with more endurance and better defence than ever before. But his baseline game transformed from reckless aggression to controlled aggression and never passive pushing, we focus so much on his wall like defence and long rallies with Nadal that we forget the fact that he still made more winners than almost all players, consistently losing out to only Federer in that particular stat column. Even if you look at the Djokodal matches post 2011 you will find him having more winners and more UEs than the Mallorcan in most if not all encounters (even the ones he lost decisively). 

There was no aggression from Nole in the '11-'16 period. He was a pusher, who was content to tire out his opponents and not go for clean winners. This is why i consider him a pusher but Rafa as a grinder - Rafa patiently waits for his clean winner chance and then goes BLAM. Nole keeps pushing and pushing and pushing. 

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

 

I agree with the gist of your remaining post. Nole has failed to adapt like Fedal and unless he makes a conscious decision to do so his days are fast numbered. Longevity is an important parameter in judging a player's standing and suffice to say the Serb is failing that criteria. All legends across sports be it Federer or Sachin or Kasparov have dominated at least 3 generations of opponents, they varied their playing styles to keep up with the next generation and also overcame their own physical/mental decline via some tweaks in their playing style.

Agreed about the hunger part. Nadal's hunger has kept him going so far when many experts predicted that his knees would give way by the age of 25, later modified to 28, then 31........ In Federer's case I don't think it is hunger, it is more about love for the game. I have never seen a sportsman love his game so much, unlike Nadal who fixes goals I think Fed plays because it gives him happiness/peace of mind. His wife too is a great part of his success, no sportsman can get a more supportive wife than Mirka.

 

Regarding your meldonium/doping suspicions I think it is mere speculation at this point. Even Nadal had these regular longish breaks in the past after which he would come back in title contention mode, Fed made a miraculous recovery after his knee surgery.....if you look at the game today it is so physical and the players' fitness is otherworldly. I too have pondered about this angle in the past, maybe after 10 years we'll have a revelation that many players took some sort of medical help to compete at the elite level. But don't have evidence now and I don't really want to pass judgement. I'd rather believe that sports injury treatment, fitness training, nutrition etc are at the highest levels/efficiency now and that's why you have so many 30+ year olds still competing at the topmost level which was quite rare in the past. I even recall reading somewhere that the average age of top 100 is the highest it has ever been in tennis history.

I am not talking about 'miraculous fitness after layoffs' - these dudes afterall, have hundreds of millions of dollars and given that their earnings depend on their physical fitness, i am sure they have the best, cutting edge tech, doctors and physios propelling them to fitness in 1/10th the time it'd take us to do it. 

I am just suspicious about Nole's terminal & catastrophic decline four-five months after Meldonium was banned. Suddenly its about his elbow, its his wife, etc etc. and he even had the audacity to pretend that he had a floating bone chip in his playing elbow !! That is just ridiculous and smells like a cover-up. 

Meldonium is supposed to give you extra stamina - given how poor Nole's stamina has been in the last six months, it reminds me back to his pre-2011 days. People forget that pre-2011, Nole had serious stamina and attitude issues. He used to run out of gas routinely by set 3/4, would 'retire hurt' when he was a set and a break down etc. So much so that even Federer questioned his attitude.

Then suddenly, he found a magic bullet cure - the 'gluten free diet'. And in 1 year, went from a guy wheezing and panting after 2 hours of tennis to Ironman of tennis, playing 5 hour matches and looking like he can play 5 more hours. 

Then suddenly Meldonium is banned, he is off and after coming back, his stamina is back to pre-2011 levels. Gives one a lot of suspicion, especially since he is Serbian and Serbian sporting federation are in bed with the Russian ones and have been since the 70s.

[Gollum]

10 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

To me, the greatest backhand of all-time will be Marat Safin's backhand. Nole has everything in his backhand, except for the ability to hit clean winners off of it. His 'winners' are redirects into the open court or ROS winners. 

Nice choice, his 2005 AO SF against Federer remains one of my favorite matches of all time. My favorite BH is Nalbandian's, such a wasted talent. Like Safin a big underachiever because of his poor work ethic, his inability to win a single major is perplexing. 

[Muloghonto]

Three things in life are certain : Taxes, death and Nadal winning at Court Phillipe Chatrier. 

[Muloghonto]

2 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Nice choice, his 2005 AO SF against Federer remains one of my favorite matches of all time. My favorite BH is Nalbandian's, such a wasted talent. Like Safin a big underachiever because of his poor work ethic, his inability to win a single major is perplexing. 

Nalbandian,Roddick, Safin, Davydenko, etc. are the 'Federer generation' players, who were simply broken down piece by Federer at his pomp. 

In this respect, Nole is lucky he is six years younger, or else he'd have gone the Davydenko way - indeed, i see Nole as a Davydenko with more longetivity. 

People don't realize how dominant Federer was between 2003 and 2009 - his stats are not as inflated as Djokovic's from 2011-2016, because courts were a lot faster and thus, the tour was more upset-prone back then (stats back this up).

But as Roddick once said in his interview, how do you beat a guy, who is kissed by genius and making up shots that don't exist, has the best offence AND the best defence in the game ?

 

You don't. I think the underachieving of these guys has a lot to do with being repeatedly crushed by Federer while they were at their peak, driving out all self-belief in them vs Federer.

[Gollum]

11 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

The difference between Nole and Federer's injury time off, is that with Federer, you could immediately see that he's put in a lot of work & practice hours, the moment he stepped on the court at Hopmans Cup in '17. Nole when he came back this year, looked like he came back from a six month binge from Ibiza. No stamina, no energy, body language was 'i wanna get off the court', etc. 

There was no aggression from Nole in the '11-'16 period. He was a pusher, who was content to tire out his opponents and not go for clean winners. This is why i consider him a pusher but Rafa as a grinder - Rafa patiently waits for his clean winner chance and then goes BLAM. Nole keeps pushing and pushing and pushing. 

I am not talking about 'miraculous fitness after layoffs' - these dudes afterall, have hundreds of millions of dollars and given that their earnings depend on their physical fitness, i am sure they have the best, cutting edge tech, doctors and physios propelling them to fitness in 1/10th the time it'd take us to do it. 

I am just suspicious about Nole's terminal & catastrophic decline four-five months after Meldonium was banned. Suddenly its about his elbow, its his wife, etc etc. and he even had the audacity to pretend that he had a floating bone chip in his playing elbow !! That is just ridiculous and smells like a cover-up. 

Meldonium is supposed to give you extra stamina - given how poor Nole's stamina has been in the last six months, it reminds me back to his pre-2011 days. People forget that pre-2011, Nole had serious stamina and attitude issues. He used to run out of gas routinely by set 3/4, would 'retire hurt' when he was a set and a break down etc. So much so that even Federer questioned his attitude.

Then suddenly, he found a magic bullet cure - the 'gluten free diet'. And in 1 year, went from a guy wheezing and panting after 2 hours of tennis to Ironman of tennis, playing 5 hour matches and looking like he can play 5 more hours. 

Then suddenly Meldonium is banned, he is off and after coming back, his stamina is back to pre-2011 levels. Gives one a lot of suspicion, especially since he is Serbian and Serbian sporting federation are in bed with the Russian ones and have been since the 70s.

1. I wasn't comparing Nole and Fed's level/body language post their comebacks. I raised that point to explain the difference in their rankings plunge compared to Nadal. Fed and Djoker missed a lot of tennis and hence points dropped off pushing them outside top 15. 

 

2. As I said earlier I don't like to compartmentalize all court specialist ATG players as servebot, pusher, grinder etc. Let's leave it at that, we have difference of opinion there and neither of us is changing the other's mind anytime soon. 

 

3. Your Meldonium theory is very interesting and entirely plausible. Only problem is it will remain a theory or speculation unless evidence comes to the fore....who knows you may be proved right one fine day in 2030 !!! Sharapova has a similar track record, she has lost her stamina post comeback, so you may be onto something. I was sucked into believing the magic due to his gluten free diet in 2011 and will still give him the benefit of doubt until it is proved otherwise.  I am medically illiterate and don't know whether floating bone chip can be medically managed or not. His elbow injury is real because after surgery his service motion has completely changed.

[Muloghonto]

3 minutes ago, Gollum said:

1. I wasn't comparing Nole and Fed's level/body language post their comebacks. I raised that point to explain the difference in their rankings plunge compared to Nadal. Fed and Djoker missed a lot of tennis and hence points dropped off pushing them outside top 15. 

 

2. As I said earlier I don't like to compartmentalize all court specialist ATG players as servebot, pusher, grinder etc. Let's leave it at that, we have difference of opinion there and neither of us is changing the other's mind anytime soon. 

 

3. Your Meldonium theory is very interesting and entirely plausible. Only problem is it will remain a theory or speculation unless evidence comes to the fore....who knows you may be proved right one fine day in 2030 !!! Sharapova has a similar track record, she has lost her stamina post comeback, so you may be onto something. I was sucked into believing the magic due to his gluten free diet in 2011 and will still give him the benefit of doubt until it is proved otherwise.  I am medically illiterate and don't know whether floating bone chip can be medically managed or not. His elbow injury is real because after surgery his service motion has completely changed.

Well i've played a lot of tennis in my time and having a floating bone chip in your playing arm is akin to having a groin muscle tear for a fast bowler. Its critical mechanical failure of the body - you won't be able to get a full extension on your playing arm, have power and everything you do tennis-wise with that arm will noticably drop. Just like no-matter how hard you try, with a groin tear as a fast bowler, you simply wont get complete hip rotation and thus will be down on pace. 

So a tennis player playing 5 hour grind-a-thons and then saying a year later 'i played with a floating bone chip in my playing arm elbow' is about as credible as a fast bowler who bowled 90mph for 5 consecutive tests saying 'i played with a total groin tear' a year later. Total, utter, bakwaas.

 

[Gollum]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

Nalbandian,Roddick, Safin, Davydenko, etc. are the 'Federer generation' players, who were simply broken down piece by Federer at his pomp. 

In this respect, Nole is lucky he is six years younger, or else he'd have gone the Davydenko way - indeed, i see Nole as a Davydenko with more longetivity. 

People don't realize how dominant Federer was between 2003 and 2009 - his stats are not as inflated as Djokovic's from 2011-2016, because courts were a lot faster and thus, the tour was more upset-prone back then (stats back this up).

But as Roddick once said in his interview, how do you beat a guy, who is kissed by genius and making up shots that don't exist, has the best offence AND the best defence in the game ?

 

You don't. I think the underachieving of these guys has a lot to do with being repeatedly crushed by Federer while they were at their peak, driving out all self-belief in them vs Federer.

I think only Hewitt and Roddick suffered directly because of Federer. Take the Swiss out and both would have retired with 5+ majors. Davydenko was never good enough in majors while Nalbandian/Safin had serious work ethic problems. I know it may be a controversial opinion but the tour (except clay) was quite weak from 2003 to 2006 circa (similar to 2014-16 weak era when Nole benefited) when Federer ruled the roost. It doesn't diminish Fed's greatness because you can only beat what is in front of you and moreover he proved his mettle in his 30s by winning multiple majors. Quality of the tour peaked post 2008 but unluckily for Federer he had mono/back problem and courts became much slower eg AO shift from Rebound Ace to Plexicushion, end of carpet courts in ATP etc. 

 

I do rate Fed's domination in the 2003-2009 period over Nole's purple patch.

 

Regarding the hypothetical scenario of Nole being 6 years older we don't know how it would have played out. If he was indeed Fed's age he would have played on faster courts in his youth and his playing style would have been moulded differently. Who knows he may have developed as a more aggressive player with better serve/net touch/overhead etc. Or we could make Fed 6 years younger in which case he would have learnt his trade on slower courts, in that case maybe he would have developed as a grinder/pusher as you describe them...even his grass game would have been different. Player's from Nole's generation hardly come to the net, that wasn't the case in Fed's generation...it would be impossible to predict how they would have adjusted. I can give the example of Anand in chess. If he had been 10 years older he would have never had access to computers in his prime and his game wouldn't have developed enough to challenge Kasparov-Karpov...Soviets were very secretive w.r.t chess knowledge/database/opening theory and India had zero chess culture till Anand's emergence. Moreover with Soviet collusion he would have been kept out of the WC cycle like they did with Fischer for many years. If he had been born 10 years later he would have grown up with powerful chess programs and had a more thorough understanding of opening, theory and endgames but would have been less creative/tricky and his understanding would have been more machine like, almost similar to many top GMs these days who are slaves to the engine. Depending on the era and surrounding environment a player develops.  Moreover you must realize that Fed was a late bloomer, he wasted away his initial years. 20 year old Nole >>20 year old Fed and 20 year old Nadal isn't even up for discussion. So had they been the same age maybe for the 1st 2-3 years Nole would have built a healthy H2H advantage over him thus building a psychological advantage...impossible to say for sure. 

Edited June 10, 2018 by Gollum
spelling, grammar

[surajmal]

Back to -3 in GS tally. Rafa is 32, Fed will be 37 in 2 months. Man, if only Rafa hadn't choked in 2017 AO... could have already buried Kevin Federline's corpse and taken the GOAT mantle for good. 

[Number]

Rafa at RG

87 played

85 won

The greatest dominance across all sports.

 

[Gollum]

8 hours ago, surajmal said:

Back to -3 in GS tally. Rafa is 32, Fed will be 37 in 2 months. Man, if only Rafa hadn't choked in 2017 AO... could have already buried Kevin Federline's corpse and taken the GOAT mantle for good. 

He didn't choke, Fed outplayed him. That scoreline looks very flattering....the only reason it went to 5 is because of the mental demons in Fed courtesy his past beatdowns at the hands of Rafa. 

 

P.S.: He was 1-3 down in the decider but if you watch the match you'll see that Fed was deep in every Nadal service game while he himself had no problem holding. Rafa was a mere spectator from then on while Fed with his aggressive baseline game dominated the proceedings. 

 

 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Gollum

[Gollum]

@Muloghonto do you think Nadal will eventually surpass Fed's GS record? It is getting too close for comfort and the Swiss is unable to pull away in spite of his miraculous run since last year. I don't see anyone on the horizon who can take out the King of Clay on Philippe Chatrier. If Rafa can schedule smartly like Fed, he may win 3-4 more RGs IMO and even USO is playing very slow these days, perfect for Nadal's style. Also he seems to be obsessed with that record, even put off his marriage with Xisca all these years lest he lose focus/motivation. 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Gollum
grammar

[Dil Dil India]

6 hours ago, Gollum said:

@Muloghonto do you think Nadal will eventually surpass Fed's GS record? It is getting too close for comfort and the Swiss is unable to pull away in spite of his miraculous run since last year. I don't see anyone on the horizon who can take out the King of Clay on Philippe Chatrier. If Rafa can schedule smartly like Fed, he may win 3-4 more RGs IMO and even USO is playing very slow these days, perfect for Nadal's style. Also he seems to be obsessed with that record, even put off his marriage with Xisca all these years lest he lose focus/motivation. 

Federer needs the difference to stay at 3 AFTER the FO next year. He will be 34 in FO 2020 and no matter how great he is, he will not keep winning RG. Even this year the cracks were visible, if there hadn't been a rain delay, Schwartzman may have been 2-0 sets up; Del Potro and Thiem both had chances to take the first set in their matches. The difference was 3 when Nadal won his first (Federer had 4 slams when Rafa won his first) and Rafa has not made a dent to that number. The spanner in the works is it took peak Djokovic to stop a 33-34 year old Federer from winning 2-3 slams in 2014-2015/AO 16 whereas there doesn't seem to be anyone close to that level yet to stop Nadal yet.

 

I feel the next 3 slams are very crucial. Assuming Rafa is a lock for FO 2019, Fed absolutely has to win at least 1 of Wimbledon 18, USO 18 or AO 19. If he doesn't win any of the 3, he has to hope Rafa has a slamless year as well until next Wimbledon...If Fed takes one of Wimbledon/USO this year and Rafa does nothing, then should be safe.