How come Attacking Fed BH isn't working lately?

plum · Mar 19, 2012

I'm especially thinking in terms of Saturday's SF against Nadal. Has he improved the stroke. Is he staying in the corner more and making sure to run around them. I can't figure it out, something is different! Are players implementing this strategy less? Or is it that we're on Hard Court right now and the balls are not bouncing up as high to his BH...

SLD76 · Mar 19, 2012

he is just playing better *shrug*

TennisLovaLova · Mar 19, 2012

Federer leveled up
even in the BH area

SLD76 · Mar 19, 2012

TennisLovaLova said:
Federer leveled up
even in the BH area

and about time too....he must have needed like 1,000,000 exp to reach this next level.

SStrikerR · Mar 19, 2012

He's playing better. He's always liked to hit on the rise, but over the past few years he's played poorly (for his standards) and just made many shanks and errors. He's hitting better now and cutting down on the shanks, therefore it seems a lot better.

Maui19 · Mar 19, 2012

Bigger racquet.

nadalwon2012 · Mar 19, 2012

plum said:
I'm especially thinking in terms of Saturday's SF against Nadal. Has he improved the stroke. Is he staying in the corner more and making sure to run around them. I can't figure it out, something is different! Are players implementing this strategy less? Or is it that we're on Hard Court right now and the balls are not bouncing up as high to his BH...

Darren Cahill said it best, about an hour before Nadal-Federer took to the court-

forzamilan90 said:
Man, Cahill basically saying if Fed doesn't win cause of the damp conditions he's fudged for the rest of the year, come on now thats crazy

Jack Romeo · Mar 19, 2012

because nadal is hitting the ball flatter now.

but seriously, the two times he has beaten nadal in the last few months, the court conditions have favored him.

i always felt that in the majority of their past matches, the conditions favored nadal. nadal wasn't good enough to get to the finals against federer on courts that didn't suit his style as much. now, with the two of them having a chance to play before the finals, expect more matches where the courts are more suitable for federer. he may finally cut down the big advantage nadal has in their head-to-head record.

brooker · Mar 19, 2012

Maui19 said:
Bigger racquet.

not true 10char

Sentinel · Mar 19, 2012

maybe everyone else has declined. that's the simplest answer.

cknobman · Mar 19, 2012

Because his backhand is not as weak as some would like to think.
He is hitting the backhand harder than ever and more importantly is able to (more) consistently take the backhand down the line.

joeri888 · Mar 19, 2012

Saw that backhand live in Rdam for the first time. Man, that shot is amazing when you see how hard he hits it live.

Wilander Fan · Mar 19, 2012

As crazy as it sounds, it looks like Federer has regained a step over the past 6 months or so. His movement is much more fluid and explosive than it had been for the last 3 years.

coloskier · Mar 19, 2012

Fed is also now hitting the BH service return with topspin instead of chipping it, and that doesn't allow Nadal to run around it to hit a forehand. the point starts in neutral, instead of with Nadal hitting the big FH to start controlling the point immediately. The less forehands that Nadal gets to hit, the bigger the chance of beating Nadal, as now both Djoker and Fed have proved. Fed should be thanking Djoker for showing him how to beat Nadal. Actually, he has always known it, but something in Fed's head wouldn't allow himself to attack Nadal's BH. Fed always wanted to win "pretty". But Annacone has finally drilled it into his head that you have to exploit the weaker side and attack the 2nd serve return.

jackson vile · Mar 19, 2012

TennisLovaLova said:
Federer leveled up
even in the BH area

Not possible, he is past his peak and prime, over the hill really.

dudeski · Mar 19, 2012

jackson vile said:
Not possible, he is past his peak and prime, over the hill really.

That's correct. He has declined significantly from his level during the strong 2004-2007 area, but his present level is still quite enough for the current weak area.

FlashFlare11 · Mar 19, 2012

It seems he's hitting his backhand with a lot of purpose now. Before, he was content to hit it back to his opponent, just so he could set up his forehand. But he was using his backhand to push Nadal back and really opening up the court for his forehand. Also, his backhand ROS improved a lot too. Usually, for whatever reason, he misses a lot of returns against Nadal. But he got a lot back into play, and a lot pushed Nadal back and opened the court for Roger.

zagor · Mar 19, 2012

jackson vile said:
Not possible, he is past his peak and prime, over the hill really.

Indeed, he's long past his peak since as we all know, players start playing sloppy subpeak tennis at the age of 24, right?

dudeski said:
That's correct. He has declined significantly from his level during the strong 2004-2007 area, but his present level is still quite enough for the current weak area.

Never thought of it that way before, you make a good point.

Rozroz · Mar 19, 2012

kragster said:
This post could have almost gotten me fired. It is so inane that I started laughing hysterically while my boss happened to walk by.

ooopsy

purge · Mar 19, 2012

Sentinel said:
maybe everyone else has declined. that's the simplest answer.

true. maybe its just a weak era who knows..

Biscuitmcgriddleson · Mar 19, 2012

Jack Romeo said:
because nadal is hitting the ball flatter now.

but seriously, the two times he has beaten nadal in the last few months, the court conditions have favored him.

i always felt that in the majority of their past matches, the conditions favored nadal. nadal wasn't good enough to get to the finals against federer on courts that didn't suit his style as much. now, with the two of them having a chance to play before the finals, expect more matches where the courts are more suitable for federer. he may finally cut down the big advantage nadal has in their head-to-head record.

How does wind favor Federer? I just don't get that.

Logan71 · Mar 19, 2012

Jack Romeo said:
i always felt that in the majority of their past matches, the conditions favored nadal. nadal wasn't good enough to get to the finals against federer on courts that didn't suit his style as much. now, with the two of them having a chance to play before the finals, expect more matches where the courts are more suitable for federer. he may finally cut down the big advantage nadal has in their head-to-head record.

I thought without really considering this that once Federer dropped down the rankings it would be more opportunity for Nadal to extend the H2H.Federer has suprised me with his form of late.2011 he just didn't close out matches well after the French.

This year is different and now with less pressure in a semi against Nadal and perhaps quicker conditions he could make the H2H more respectable.Only trouble now is after Miami were back in Nadal's house.

Rome can be quick in the sun,Madrid is fast clay so maybe 1-1 there at worst,but RG is another story as he hasn't convinced me that he could really beat him there apart from 1 1/2 sets of play where he catches him out.

monfed · Mar 19, 2012

Biscuitmcgriddleson said:
How does wind favor Federer? I just don't get that.

It doesn't(as you probably already know). Federer's strokemaking is so heavily reliant on timing that the wind hampers it, he just can't time it properly especially off his BH side. Federer is competent to play in the wind, doesn't mean the wind is actually favouring him. What a joke. If anything the wind favours Nadal because the ball takes an unpredictable trajectory due to the wind that doesn't allow Fed to take the ball early, this requires him to time the ball even more thus is more demanding on him.

There's a case for the wetter surface benefitting Fed since the ball didn't kick up enough from the surface from Nadal's lasso FH, but the point is they didn't play on a wet court like the ****s here make it out to be, the courts were wiped clean by those kids with towels and it's not like the players tripped.

cknobman · Mar 19, 2012

monfed said:
There's a case for the wetter surface benefitting Fed since the ball didn't kick up enough from the surface from Nadal's lasso FH, but the point is they didn't play on a wet court like the ****s here make it out to be, the courts were wiped clean by those kids with towels and it's not like the players tripped.

I call bullsH t on this one. I saw Roger wearing water skis so the courts had to be pretty wet. Damn the water, it cost Rafa the title!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sureshs · Mar 19, 2012

Nadal was the only one who could consistently attack Fed's backhand, but he has declined faster than Fed.

Jack Romeo · Mar 19, 2012

Biscuitmcgriddleson said:
How does wind favor Federer? I just don't get that.

his shots are flatter and cuts through it. but it isn't so much the wind as the rain. the match reports i've read said that it made the courts slicker, thus favoring his game a bit.

Pwned · Mar 19, 2012

Biscuitmcgriddleson said:
How does wind favor Federer? I just don't get that.

He's a smart player in the wind and knows how to use it to his advantage so long as he's playing well.

ChanceEncounter · Mar 20, 2012

Jack Romeo said:
his shots are flatter and cuts through it. but it isn't so much the wind as the rain. the match reports i've read said that it made the courts slicker, thus favoring his game a bit.

Not sure how this works. Spinnier shots tend to have more control. Flat shots tend to move more often. It's why knuckleballs are thrown with minimal spin, so they can 'flutter' as the air cuts across them.

It's also why Federer is considerably better than Nadal indoors. Federer's shots are flatter and carry better indoors, and the faster courts highlight his shotmaking ability.

henryshli · Mar 20, 2012

I think the cool temperature made the balls less bouncy so in theory favoured fed

Jack Romeo · Mar 20, 2012

ChanceEncounter said:
Not sure how this works. Spinnier shots tend to have more control. Flat shots tend to move more often. It's why knuckleballs are thrown with minimal spin, so they can 'flutter' as the air cuts across them.

It's also why Federer is considerably better than Nadal indoors. Federer's shots are flatter and carry better indoors, and the faster courts highlight his shotmaking ability.

like i said, the wind was not the only factor. besides, federer doesn't hit the ball totally flat. i also don't think that nadal wasn't putting as much spin as he normally does in this match. he wasn't controlling the ball well, certainly not as well as roger did.

SStrikerR · Mar 20, 2012

Jack Romeo said:
like i said, the wind was not the only factor. besides, federer doesn't hit the ball totally flat. i also don't think that nadal wasn't putting as much spin as he normally does in this match. he wasn't controlling the ball well, certainly not as well as roger did.

News flash: tennis isn't played in perfect conditions every time. The player who can adapt and win regardless isthe better player that day, simple as that. If you want to argue that fed won because court conditions favored him since they were allegedly faster, guess you'll just have to discount every time try played on clay since that obviously favored nadal.

No? Didn't think so.

OddJack · Mar 20, 2012

Rodge improved BH, look at Miami match and number of his UEs,
Plus he made him hit more BH hence receive less topspins

Jack Romeo · Mar 21, 2012

SStrikerR said:
News flash: tennis isn't played in perfect conditions every time. The player who can adapt and win regardless isthe better player that day, simple as that. If you want to argue that fed won because court conditions favored him since they were allegedly faster, guess you'll just have to discount every time try played on clay since that obviously favored nadal.

No? Didn't think so.

why the hell would anyone discount the times they played on clay? federer lost those matches but at least he was there. nadal was never there to play him on faster courts until recently.

my point is that now, these two players are getting to play more matches where the conditions favor federer instead of just the other way around. federer was good enough to get to the finals of a lot of clay tourneys but nadal wasn't good enough to get to the finals of tournaments which favored fed's game. but now, nadal can already get to the rounds where he can play roger on hard/fast courts. this is good for roger to cut down on his deficit in their head-to-head record.

TennisLovaLova · Mar 21, 2012

^ yeah but surfaces have been slowed down havent they?

Fed didnt abuse of the dropshot vs nadal last week

How come Attacking Fed BH isn't working lately?

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