Does Del Potro play several levels higher vs Federer than other players?

Does anyone else feels it seems Del Potro plays completely out of his mind everytime he has played Federer since the French Open. Basically he plays 3 levels higher than he does vs anyone else, other than maybe his matches with Nadal where he also really hits top gear. That is especialy true looking at yesterdays match. I mean look at his performances this fall:

loses to someone named Roger-Vasselin
loses to fading veteran Jurgen Melzer
nearly loses to a completely washed up Safin in his final match
has to save 6 or 7 match points vs Gonzalez
is being destroyed by Stepanek before retiring with an injury
loses to a sluggish Murray in 3 sets
barely scrapes past a choking Verdasco

Yet he steps on the court with Federer and suddenly he is this insane beast yet again. Hitting the ball literally twice as hard and serving twice as well as he was in any of those other matches, especialy the ones before the TMC. Imagine him playing the same tennis vs Stepanek, Gonzalez, Safin, Roger-Vasselin, or Melzer, he did vs Federer. He was being completely overpowered by the hard hitting Safin and Gonzalez, and won by their errors, however playing like he did vs Federer he would have bullied those guys with his own power. I watched all those matches and difference in how hard he was hitting the ball and how he was serving was night and day. He would have crushed any of those guys playing the way he did vs Federer, other than maybe Murray. Or imagine him playing the same kind of tennis he did vs any of those guys vs Federer, it would be Federer winning in about 50 minutes even if he had an off day.

It is just funny to see how much better he seems to play vs Roger than anyone else. I sort of had that sense before, but seeing him sluggish play all fall and then him come out like a beast yesterday I am even more convinced of it.

or maybe since the Aussie Open, Federer cant get a first serve in during his matches with JMDP, and then gets into long neutral backhand to backhand baseline rallies with JMDP, and then gives the ball to his forehand and gets thrashed..

the only two decent points that i saw Federer play last night was when he brought JMDP to net and passed him.

otherwise it was either a bad match from Fed, or a strategically tanked match to keep murray out of the semi's

Yeah and it's refreshing to see. At the US open I was like ok he play well but he won't keep it up for 5 set and federer will end up winning it anyway but the amazing level never dropped and not ball were out, he was literally on fire. There not much to do with this kind of Del Potro except waiting the beast to calm down and sometime it won't.

benasp said:

Yeah and it's refreshing to see. At the US open I was like ok he play well but he won't keep it up for 5 set and federer will end up winning it anyway but the amazing level never dropped and not ball were out, he was literally on fire. There not much to do with this kind of Del Potro except waiting the beast to calm down and sometime it won't.

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Very true. It seems some top players are able to neutralize his game though. Like Murray and Djokovic, both who own Del Potro up to now.

To me it seems JMDP has Federer's number, but Federer doesn't have JMDP's. Sounds like something RF's coach should do...

This is very true. I guess he is very inspired by playing the Best of all time and his idol.

The Beast from Tandil can't be stopped.

I think Delpo is a horrible matching for Roger, like Soderling is to Nadal.

Not sure why, but Delpo said many times he would like to be like Roger (probably role model, wining title, money, hope no chosing wife :mrgreen perhaps Delpo studied Roger a lot and is able to execute against him.

Del Po is just coming into his own. He's got tremendous weapons, has gotten faster, great mental strength, and his poise on court is pretty darn good, especially in big matches. This is not good for the field, considering he's only 21.

I think he slowed down after the USO, because that seems to be a natural trend coming off your first grand slam win.

Players he had problems with in the past may, or may not trouble him in 2010, but then again, everyone has a nemesis.

Djokovic's and Murray's H2Hs with Del Potro won't last long if Del Potro stays healthy. He's played thoroughly uninspired tennis the last few times he's played either of them.

KenC said:

To me it seems JMDP has Federer's number, but Federer doesn't have JMDP's. Sounds like something RF's coach should do...

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Federer still has an enormous H2H lead over Del Potro, and the matches where he's lost to DP, he's played rather poorly. A lot of people act like DP "made him play poorly", but that's non-sense. Federer is probably the best player of all time, so when he plays well, he basically beats anyone (excepting Nadal on clay, who's game is just made for it).

You don't often see a player outhit or outpower Federer. But Del Potro has done it twice in a row now. His forehand, backhand, and serve have been as good if not better than Federer's in these last two matches. Federer always says that he feels in control of most matches because he is usually the aggressive player. Del Potro is taking that control away from him and dictating play.

He took a lot of time to get back into groove after US Open. He was still rusty for Murray match and lost the first set quickly, otherwise he would have won. By the time Federer came along, Dp was ready to rock.

I wouldn't take those losses to Vasselin and Stepanek too seriously.

dh003i said:

Federer still has an enormous H2H lead over Del Potro, and the matches where he's lost to DP, he's played rather poorly. A lot of people act like DP "made him play poorly", but that's non-sense. Federer is probably the best player of all time, so when he plays well, he basically beats anyone (excepting Nadal on clay, who's game is just made for it).

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Federer has this H2H lead because they played a lot of matches before Del Potro matured (sometime around spring this year). For this same reason, Murray and Djokovic have even more superior H2H lead. But in the other thread you said that you consider DP better than them.