Will Roger play clay in 2018 ...

Fedforever

Hall of Fame
No way. He's doing his best to try and make the H2H between himself and Nadal look semi-respectable before he hangs up his racket. That means absolutely, at all cost avoiding him on his preferred surface. Clay season is long. If Fed is in good form and reaching clay finals, that's potentially 4-5 beatdowns by Nadal in that part of the season alone, and a return to the psycholgical barrier.

Yes, I' sure that's much more important to him than getting 20 slams.
 

-NN-

G.O.A.T.
It's possible that Federer would be fine on clay now though I've heard the surface can destabilise his knee and that his greatest risk of injury is on clay - how true that is who knows. Fed might as well maximise his chances where he plays best and at the same time take substantial breaks to stay fresh and healthy so he can play for as long as possible, and the clay court season fits in quite conveniently with such planning leading into Wimbledon.
 
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Deleted member 688153

Guest
Here's why: . once he's gone from the tour that's it: . he's gone...finished.....addios,...kapput.

As a fan of Fed's game (and moreover a fan of the sport of tennis), I'm more interested in Fed maximizing his number of court appearances, i.e. getting to see Federer play whenever and wherever, whether it's on clay or whatever......

....hmmm, I just put 'whenever', 'wherever', 'whether' and 'whatever' in a sentence ......day'em!,.not bad if I say so myself.... . : )

In other words, I'm not MORE concerned with "MY favorite male tennis idol" sitting out part of the ATP season just to pad his non-clay GS total .... or to distance himself from "THEIR favorite male tennis idol." . . . And not to bust chops here but imho that's not "big picture" thinking but instead more along the lines of selfish fanboy myopia.
Nah.
If he plays a full schedule he will retire himself with injury within a year or so.
That's a young man's game.

If he keeps targeting certain events, he could play till 40, and hopefully leave without lasting injury.
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
And I really don’t understand this line of reasoning that clay is the worst surface for Fed to play on.

Clay is a SOFT surface. Statistics and common sense tells you HC’s are worse on your joints than clay. Which is precisely why the over abundance of HC’s on the schedule while we have only 3 Clay court MS events, ZERO Grass MS, & ZERO Carpet events period is totally ridiculous.
 

Steve0904

Talk Tennis Guru
His perogative. But I think he’s being a weenie for taking the easy way out. Winning Wimbledon against hilariously weak competition doesn’t probe anything, beating Nadal at RG when he has a legitimate shot at it would be the greatest single accomplishment of his career.

He has no shot at it. That ship has sailed. Stop being ridiculous. All you're doing is pretending like Federer is some unbeatable monster in order to rag on him for taking the "easy way out." Saying this about a guy that played a full season up until 33-34 years of age (and even stupidly played on clay last year despite debilitating injury) is complete BS.
 
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nikdom

Guest
Only if it’s Blue

1federerjpg-ac074dbb8ba36615.jpg
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
He has no shot at it. That ship has sailed. Stop being ridiculous. All you're doing is pretending like Federer is some unbeatable monster in order to rag on him for taking the "easy way out." Saying this about a guy that played a full season up until 33-34 years of age (and even stupidly played on clay last year despite debilitating injury) is complete BS.
I have a question: If a 34/35 year old Agassi had managed to hold on and beat Fed at either one or both of the ‘04/05 USO’s would you have thought it was a huge deal?
 

Steve0904

Talk Tennis Guru
I have a question: If a 34/35 year old Agassi had managed to hold on and beat Fed at either one or both of the ‘04/05 USO’s would you have thought it was a huge deal?

Yes. But Agassi on HC is nowhere near Nadal on clay anyway. If Federer couldn't do it in his prime he won't do it now regardless of Nadal's own decline. He wouldn't even get to Nadal anymore, let alone beat him. The accumulation of BO5 on the most physical surface would get to him after 3 or 4 rounds regardless of it being easiest on the knees.
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
Yes. But Agassi on HC is nowhere near Nadal on clay anyway. If Federer couldn't do it in his prime he won't do it now regardless of Nadal's own decline. He wouldn't even get to Nadal anymore, let alone beat him. The accumulation of BO5 on the most physical surface would get to him after 3 or 4 rounds regardless of it being easiest on the knees.
My bad I wasn’t actually trying to compare Nadal Fed in clay to now I was just talking about Fed and Agassi in general at their ages. Didn’t make that clear.
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
Though I must say part of the blame goes to the schedule. Even with the added week less than a month to suddenly switch from clay to grass is absurd (and in the pre- Poly era a very good reason for a Borg as GOAT case).
 
I think he'll run away again. He's terrified of being humiliated by Nadal, so tries to restrict their meetings to his favoured surfaces.

Pretty poor show by someone ranked #2 in the world.
 
D

Deleted member 743561

Guest
I think he'll run away again. He's terrified of being humiliated by Nadal, so tries to restrict their meetings to his favoured surfaces.

Pretty poor show by someone ranked #2 in the world.
Is it your belief that he'll manage to make up the arrears? Can he do it by 65? :eek:
 

metsman

G.O.A.T.
My bad I wasn’t actually trying to compare Nadal Fed in clay to now I was just talking about Fed and Agassi in general at their ages. Didn’t make that clear.
Hard is Agassi's best surface, clay is Federer's worst. Not to mention that 34 year old Agassi had much less mileage than 34 year old Federer.
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
Hard is Agassi's best surface, clay is Federer's worst. Not to mention that 34 year old Agassi had much less mileage than 34 year old Federer.
In gross time played maybe but Agassi had to play a much more baseline oriented draining style (in a time when until the early 2000’s it was more difficult to pull off). Plus he had a bad back like Fed.
 

Fedforever

Hall of Fame
He has no shot at it. That ship has sailed. Stop being ridiculous. All you're doing is pretending like Federer is some unbeatable monster in order to rag on him for taking the "easy way out." Saying this about a guy that played a full season up until 33-34 years of age (and even stupidly played on clay last year despite debilitating injury) is complete BS.

Superbly put. It's the mental side as well. As far as I can tell Fed has come to terms with the fact that he never beat Nadal at RG - why should he put himself through the wringer again? Leave him be - he lost five times to Nadal at RG - demanding he go through it again a sixth time for no good reason is just unpleasant.
 
J

JRAJ1988

Guest
This depends on his physical condition after Indian Well and Miami, he might skip Miami to rest up for say Monte Carlo and go at the French Open, if he loses early in Paris he'd bounce back at Stuttgart then Halle....then Wimbledon.
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
Superbly put. It's the mental side as well. As far as I can tell Fed has come to terms with the fact that he never beat Nadal at RG - why should he put himself through the wringer again? Leave him be - he lost five times to Nadal at RG - demanding he go through it again a sixth time for no good reason is just unpleasant.
You seem nice and I’m not going to argue this with you. If Fed fans feel that way that’s fine. But I can’t stand the fact that they hold this viewpoint while simultaneously attacking Rafa for pulling out of events and calling him a cheater. Like it’s so hypocritical it’s not even funny.
 

zagor

Bionic Poster
And I really don’t understand this line of reasoning that clay is the worst surface for Fed to play on.

Clay is a SOFT surface.
Statistics and common sense tells you HC’s are worse on your joints than clay. Which is precisely why the over abundance of HC’s on the schedule while we have only 3 Clay court MS events, ZERO Grass MS, & ZERO Carpet events period is totally ridiculous.

What statistics? Clay courters have always been more prone to injuries and have had shorter careers. Kuerten, Muster, Bruguera, Courier (though he could play anywhere), Coria etc. all flamed out early. Nadal is about the only exception in Open Era and if you believe his camp and fangroups even he is more injury prone than HC players like Fed and Novak.

Whether it's better for your average weekend hacker with a beer belly is one thing but for pros, the surface that puts premium on fitness and long gruelling rallies leads to more injuries than HC where you can take the ball early, hit flat winners and get a ton of freebies from your serve.

Fed can barely last a season even with such a reduced schedule, I sincerely doubt he's touching clay until his farewell tour or something. If he played CC season this year you'd have barely seen him for the rest of the year (maybe a SF/QF run at Wimbledon).
 

TheAssassin

Legend
I think he'll run away again. He's terrified of being humiliated by Nadal, so tries to restrict their meetings to his favoured surfaces.

Pretty poor show by someone ranked #2 in the world.
Nadal has done the restricting meetings to his favored surface thing for a very good part of his career, it's only fair he gets a bit of a taste of his own medicine now.
 

Fedforever

Hall of Fame
You seem nice and I’m not going to argue this with you. If Fed fans feel that way that’s fine. But I can’t stand the fact that they hold this viewpoint while simultaneously attacking Rafa for pulling out of events and calling him a cheater. Like it’s so hypocritical it’s not even funny.

Thank you, I try to be nice!! And I agree - I would never call Rafa a cheater - I believe that in the absence of firm evidence either way we should always give players the benefit of the doubt so when someone says they're injured they are as far as I'm concerned.

If you genuinely believe that Fed has a chance of beating Rafa at RG (I don't) then I see your point of view but I really dislike the few Rafa fans on this board who are clearly motivated by the desire to see Fed get a good kicking!! If you support a player then your pleasure should come in seeing them win - the pleasure shouldn't come mainly from seeing the opponent lose. As a teenage McEnroe fan it upset me to learn much later how much pleasure he'd taken in humiliating Connors in Wimbledon 84 - and that's even with me never liking Connors. I never got the impression Nadal felt like that after RG 08 - people commented at the time that his celebrations seemed rather muted - gives me a lot of respect for him.
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
Thank you, I try to be nice!! And I agree - I would never call Rafa a cheater - I believe that in the absence of firm evidence either way we should always give players the benefit of the doubt so when someone says they're injured they are as far as I'm concerned.

If you genuinely believe that Fed has a chance of beating Rafa at RG (I don't) then I see your point of view but I really dislike the few Rafa fans on this board who are clearly motivated by the desire to see Fed get a good kicking!! If you support a player then your pleasure should come in seeing them win - the pleasure shouldn't come mainly from seeing the opponent lose. As a teenage McEnroe fan it upset me to learn much later how much pleasure he'd taken in humiliating Connors in Wimbledon 84 - and that's even with me never liking Connors. I never got the impression Nadal felt like that after RG 08 - people commented at the time that his celebrations seemed rather muted - gives me a lot of respect for him.
Thank you too! Nice post, agree with all of it.
 

fedtennisphan

Hall of Fame
The only people who are desperate to see Federer play on clay are one’s desperately trying to keep him from winning more GS titles. If Federer didn’t win any GS titles this year, none of these people would care if Federer didn’t play during the clay season. People have been butthurt against Federer since he broke the GS record. The GS record is highly coveted by certain fanbases and would root for anything to happen to Federer that keeps him from adding more so their fav can get the record.
 

Bartelby

Bionic Poster
That's what Nadal does, not Federer, while claiming injury. Federer just openly decides not to play for honest reasons.

I think he'll run away again. He's terrified of being humiliated by Nadal, so tries to restrict their meetings to his favoured surfaces.

Pretty poor show by someone ranked #2 in the world.
 

PMChambers

Hall of Fame
He should play either Monte or Rome as a minimum. Usually I'd say Majors definitely but FO bit too close to his contracted Tourneys.
 

Musterrific

Hall of Fame
At this point in his career, there's absolutely no reason for him to grind through the clay season anymore, especially as he's more injury prone now, and is unlikely to win anything significant. I'd have loved to see him pull off 1 Monte Carlo and 1 Rome title in his career, but I've made peace with the fact that neither will happen.
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
I would put this in another way:
What do you think Roger would have done if he did not have such an impressive season start in 2017?
Like losing in AO, IW and Miami before rounds 3 or 4, thus having played approximately half of the matches he did?
Would he have skipped the clay season as he did?
 

merlinpinpin

Hall of Fame
He might consider playing in two scenarios -

1) Fails to defend AO,IW,Miami with early round upsets(God forbid)
2) Very close to the number 1 ranking

Fully subscribe to that. If he's close to the #1 spot, I can totally see him go out there and take it "actively" (even if it's just by playing a couple of tournaments) rather than waiting for Nadal to lose and the top spot to drop into his lap with him not playing.

As for Miami, I sure hope he doesn't go there next year, and plays Rotterdam (probably much too close to AO, I know, but still...)-Dubai-IW instead. We'll see.
 

fedtennisphan

Hall of Fame
I would put this in another way:
What do you think Roger would have done if he did not have such an impressive season start in 2017?
Like losing in AO, IW and Miami before rounds 3 or 4, thus having played approximately half of the matches he did?
Would he have skipped the clay season as he did?

Well duh! He produced the results he needed to be able to skip the clay season. Federer is not playing on clay unless he has to and even then it’s doubtful.
 

mike danny

Bionic Poster
I would put this in another way:
What do you think Roger would have done if he did not have such an impressive season start in 2017?
Like losing in AO, IW and Miami before rounds 3 or 4, thus having played approximately half of the matches he did?
Would he have skipped the clay season as he did?
Well, it's still possible given his main goal coming into 2017 was to win Wimb.
 

mike danny

Bionic Poster
The only way he plays clay is if Nadal for some reason pulls out of RG.
Even then it's not a sure thing. Nadal hasn't been his main problem on clay for years. The last time he lost to him at RG was 6 years ago.

Not a sure thing he beats the likes of Thiem and Zverev on the surface. Not to mention the other healthy top players.
 

mike danny

Bionic Poster
As has he. He's made a rational decision which fans should be supporting.
The ************* doesn't though. They can't stand the idea of Nadal not getting a crack at Roger on his favorite surface anymore.

They wouldn't even care about Roger skipping clay if Nadal didn't lose to him so many times.
 
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