2014 China Open ATP Singles Main Draw

Djokovic2011 said:
Who you got tomorrow Mainad? I think Andy will take this one!
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Not sure. I'm just hoping for a good match. Djokovic is unbeaten in Beijing and is the better player at the moment. If Murray can play at least as well as he did at the USO I think he may have a chance but Djokovic is the clear favourite and the smart money would have to be on him.
 
Mainad said:
Not sure. I'm just hoping for a good match. Djokovic is unbeaten in Beijing and is the better player at the moment. If Murray can play at least as well as he did at the USO I think he may have a chance but Djokovic is the clear favourite and the smart money would have to be on him.
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I'm looking forward to seeing if Murray slices and dices or if he'll go into full on ballbashing mode like he did at the USO. Here's hoping for a good match! :)
 
MichaelNadal said:
It's not a big deal, it's a natural decline. His tennis has not been superb this year by any means, despite where he is in the race is what I'm saying. How many times have we seen a Rafa classic this year? I expect him to play his way back into better form and be good to go at the AO. If not, and he has another subpar clay season, then we'll know this is a permanent slide.
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That's my feeling too. Next year he turns 29. He's running out of time.

Also, just look at the Wimbledon 2006 match, just for a few minutes. There is almost none of the "touching" in his game. He played some points just a little slower than Fed, down to 20 seconds.

I don't recall him constantly grabbing his crotch either in 2013. The OCD stuff is REALLY getting in his way now. It's what caused him to be called for a time violation today on set point, second set. And he was violating time all over the place.

I am not criticizing. I am genuinely concerned. It's really getting out of hand.
 
Steve0904 said:
A lot of that is true, no doubt, but it should be said that Beijing is an outdoor tournament unless they changed it this year. It's not played indoors as a rule. I didn't see Nadal-Klizan, but unless they have a roof and it rained there, the match was played outdoors.
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But the moment they close the roof it becomes an indoor match. And it was closed early in the first set.

If you had seen the match you would be more puzzled. Nadal was very tight in the first set, but still playing pretty well, and Klizan was playing well. I did not expect Nadal to pull off the first set, not in a tie-breaker, but when he did, and he was up a break in the 2nd set, I thought he had it. I'm sure everyone else did too.

Then he was still 3:3 in the last set. They were on serve. He just faded after that.

I'd like to think it is just rust. We aren't going to know until we get well into 2015. A good showing in the AO is possible, but I think that would be a very long shot.
 
SpicyCurry1990 said:
What is the FUNNIEST though is at least it takes a TOURNAMENT WIN for Nadal fans to do that unlike proclaiming Federer LOSING in a Wimbledon final is the greatest achievement in sports, but then exhibiting "predictable duality" by then writing off the win for Novak over him as meaningless due to "old" as is the case with every win any player has over Fed. Right? :)

Oh and then proceeding to satiate your own insecurities by claiming Fed would go 38-2 in his prime vs Nole, despite the fact that Nole has never lost a 5th set to Fed, is 17-18 over-all and 6-6 in slams against him covering a span of 7 years across prime periods of both players. Right? :lol:
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Well said. If Federer wins, he's the goat doing what he does at his age. When he loses, he's too old.

Don't worry, we've been hearing how he's too old since he was 26, the truth is the competition got tougher, he didn't feel as confident as he did when it was easier and hence he lost more. A lot more.
 
NatF said:
Clay results and 2 HC masters and a Wimbledon final....
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He would've been #2 in 2005 and 2006 without any off clay titles or Wimbledon final. That's how far behind the competition was Nat. That's how far behind Roddick and Hewitt were in 2005 and Blake + Ljubicic + Davydenko in 2006 were even worse.

Nadal finished 2005 1700 points ahead of Roddick and 2300 points ahead of Hewitt. Those 2 HC Masters weren't needed.

Nadal finished 2006 with a 1600 points lead over Davydenko, 1900 over Blake and 2000 over Ljubicic. Wimbledon final not required.

All I'm saying is, in 05 and 06 he was far superior on clay than HC which is why he was still ranked #2 because his clay results were more than enough to give him that ranking. Nobody else could come close to his ranking because they weren't as good as you want them to be to pump up Fed's competition.
 
Weak era arguments are weak and by now very very stale.

We have noticed Fed's contemporaries Haas, Robredo, Lopez, Stepanek , Hewitt , Ferrer still getting the wins.

Let us hope Nadal continues to win so the threat remains real. It will be a bummer if he fades quickly.
 
Gary Duane said:
But the moment they close the roof it becomes an indoor match. And it was closed early in the first set.

If you had seen the match you would be more puzzled. Nadal was very tight in the first set, but still playing pretty well, and Klizan was playing well. I did not expect Nadal to pull off the first set, not in a tie-breaker, but when he did, and he was up a break in the 2nd set, I thought he had it. I'm sure everyone else did too.

Then he was still 3:3 in the last set. They were on serve. He just faded after that.

I'd like to think it is just rust. We aren't going to know until we get well into 2015. A good showing in the AO is possible, but I think that would be a very long shot.
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With the match being played indoors I wouldn't be too concerned. Of course he will decline and his HC game this year has been less than spectacular, but I highly doubt you would see Nadal drop the kind of lead he had in an outdoor match at a major if that's what you're worried about. And not to a player of Klizan's caliber.

The only part about this that I don't like is the old motivation and/or rust ideas. Sure, he's rusty after 3 months, but I think that's hard to quantify in conditions that Nadal's never been that good in regardless tbh. I've seen Nadal play better matches indoors, but I've also seen a lot worse. And really, after nearly a month off from match play even for players that played the USO or Davis Cup, they're all rusty.

As for Nadal being motivated, sure he's motivated too, but so is everybody else, and it bears repeating that this is the "bad" part of the season for Nadal. Unfortunately, it just feeds into the myth that this healthy, motivated Nadal is unbeatable, and trust me, you stick around and you'll find plenty of people that actually believe that. It's just so tiresome at this point for people like me that have been here long enough and plus, seen it in other places.

It kind of reminds me of Nadal's grass struggles in recent years to be honest. First loss was a shock, understandably so, but then the 2nd one happened, and the prevailing thought was that if Nadal could get out of the first week he would be fine (admittedly I thought this as well), but he did that this year when he played a R16 on a Monday and still lost to a relative nobody to this point in his career. And you know what the worst part of all this is, we'll get all the healthy, motivated stuff next year too because there is an extra week between Halle and Wimbledon starting next year. You just wait and see if I'm not right come around Wimbledon time in 2015.
 
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Noleberic123 said:
Why do u think andy will win??
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Hi Noleberic! :smile: I just have a feeling that Murray is due a really big win after such a tough year and beating the #1 player in the world and defending champion is a pretty good place to start! I was also reminded before that Nole ended Murray's streak in Shanghai two years ago so I think Andy's gonna want to return the favour today :wink: So as strange as it may sound, I'll actually be quite surprised if Nole does win this match but needless to say I'll be delighted all the same!
 
Gary Duane said:
That's my feeling too. Next year he turns 29. He's running out of time.

Also, just look at the Wimbledon 2006 match, just for a few minutes. There is almost none of the "touching" in his game. He played some points just a little slower than Fed, down to 20 seconds.

I don't recall him constantly grabbing his crotch either in 2013. The OCD stuff is REALLY getting in his way now. It's what caused him to be called for a time violation today on set point, second set. And he was violating time all over the place.

I am not criticizing. I am genuinely concerned. It's really getting out of hand.
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He has had a great career. Not sure what more he has to achieve that you are saying he doesn't have time. Nothing to be concerned about.

I am pretty sure he has achieved more than what he had set himself to achieve.
 
Djokovic2011 said:
Hi Noleberic! :smile: I just have a feeling that Murray is due a really big win after such a tough year and beating the #1 player in the world and defending champion is a pretty good place to start! I was also reminded before that Nole ended Murray's streak in Shanghai two years ago so I think Andy's gonna want to return the favour today :wink: So as strange as it may sound, I'll actually be quite surprised if Nole does win this match but needless to say I'll be delighted all the same!
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Whoever loses this match may perform better at Shanghai. Now what would you prefer ?
 
Ralph said:
10696464_795647760487099_1795840771884210972_n.jpg
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:lol::lol::lol:

Great Episode... Looking foward to seeing how Andy plays against Djokovic.
 
I honestly love watching Murray play. The way he hits the ball is great. Djokovic is being way more aggressive though.

What a BP!
 
tennisaddict said:
He has had a great career. Not sure what more he has to achieve that you are saying he doesn't have time. Nothing to be concerned about.

I am pretty sure he has achieved more than what he had set himself to achieve.
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If he's happy with where he is now, that's fine, but I'm pretty sure he wants to have at least one more really strong year.
 
insideguy said:
If they cant be consistent they should just give up. I dont think I have ever seen them call a time violation on Sharapova.
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I'm all for a shot clock because I think it would be easier on everyone. No guessing, no worrying. What they are doing now is just not right.
 
Terenigma said:
I didnt watch him today but i watched him against Gasquet and he did take noticably longer whenever he was facing a break point or a tough point. I agree that Nadal does get a bit of unfair bias towards him when it comes to enforcing the rule, but he is also the one who clearly takes advantage of it. It needs to be drilled into his head on occasions when its not as obvious because you can bet money that as soon as an umpire doesnt enforce it, he'll be taking 30seconds again.
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The difference is in his rituals. He has to stare at three balls on his racket, then discard one. That's something that goes way back. The toweling takes time. But he loses several seconds on every serve now with the butt, crotch, shoulders, nose, ears. He HAS to fix this, but don't know if he can. He lost set point today when he lost his 1st serve from the match point. That was crucial, because it was 30/40.

As I keep saying, he did not use to do all these things. Look back to Wimbledon 2006, then check each year. Things like the bottles and other OCD things just about all players have, at least some of that. That doesn't take time between points.
Umpires arnt stupid tho. They know when both players have just endured a 20-30 shot rally that they will need time to get some breath back and im sure they will allow a couple more seconds. When its an ace or a 2shot rally tho? Its a joke to be taking anywhere near 20, let alone 25seconds before the next serve.
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That's the problem with a potential shot clock, isn't it? I think 25 seconds or under is fine, but what about 30 and 40 stroke rallies. I don't think you can expect these guys to be ready to play the next point without a bit more time.
 
Gary Duane said:
The difference is in his rituals. He has to stare at three balls on his racket, then discard one. That's something that goes way back. The toweling takes time. But he loses several seconds on every serve now with the butt, crotch, shoulders, nose, ears. He HAS to fix this, but don't know if he can. He lost set point today when he lost his 1st serve from the match point. That was crucial, because it was 30/40.

As I keep saying, he did not use to do all these things. Look back to Wimbledon 2006, then check each year. Things like the bottles and other OCD things just about all players have, at least some of that. That doesn't take time between points.

That's the problem with a potential shot clock, isn't it? I think 25 seconds or under is fine, but what about 30 and 40 stroke rallies. I don't think you can expect these guys to be ready to play the next point without a bit more time.
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why not a "beep" or a "buzz" with 10 seconds to serve?
 
12 point streaks. Giving me too many bad Top Spin flashbacks.

Game Murray, but breaking Djokovic back is another story. Good luck to him.
 
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