27 year old peak Nadal vs 32 year old injured Federer

Would the H2H be even if Nadal could go deep on hardcourts in Fed's prime?

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Good cartoon


Sorana fan said:
spongebob-butthurt.gif
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90's Clay said:
Come on. At least wait to see what nadal does a flushing before u label this the best hard court season for him hahah. What I've see. From rafa from his return is nothing short of great but he was on another level the years he won the hardcourt slams and serving 130 mph bombs and beating peak verdasco and prime fed in Australia
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Really?:???:
 
DRII said:
:lol:

if the 'expert' you're referring to is Patrick McEnroe, who essentially sets the template for an insecure fedephant in broadcasting, then you're correct.

However, in reality any rational person realizes Nadal's 2010 USO form is far and away superior to the current Nadal!

recognize!
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I thought he was going to cry last night after Fed lost. I also remember he looked like he was going to start sobbing after Fed lost the AO in 2009 as well. Pmac is a total joke.
 
Clay lover said:
Oh another hypothetical question to make yourself feel better? There are way more meaningful things in life you can do to make yourself happy.
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Well, you're here for what 7 years now, have you been meditating on TW? :lol:
 
objectivity said:
but that's where your logic breaks down. if its indeed ONLY a matchup issue -- and nothing about nadal being a great player -- then somebody playing similar style to nadal like verdasco, should do well against federer. i.e. a lefty who produces lots of topspin and has a double handed backhand. however, federer absolutely chomps on verdasco. as he has with every other lefty he has ever faced, on every surface.

this suggests that it isn't just about the matchup (which i agree is actually in nadal's favor), but also about nadal. his movement, his power, his control. please don't discount all that.
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LOL the only similarity b/w Dasco and Ralph is that they're left handed spaniards. The similarities end there so your analogy doesn't work, I'm afraid.
 
Omega_7000 said:
A 32 year old injured Federer in the worst form of his career almost took out peak injury free 27 year old Nadal in the best form of his career.

That says a lot! I never imagined peak Nadal playing at his absolute best would have so much trouble dismissing an old semi-retired injured Federer. :lol:

The H2H would've been even if Nadal was good enough to go deep on hardcourts in Fed's prime.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVjR_C3nhg0
 
objectivity said:
wait, so why doesn't verdasco present a match up problem to federer? i am genuinely curious. why?
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Well just off the top of my head, Dasco doesn't hit 5000 rpm FHs to Fed's 1HBH. His strokes from the FH wing travel flat and quick through the air which helps Fed time the ball and take it on the rise or just flat out stand and deliver,doesn't even have to think about a bad bounce or how high the ball will spit up at him.
Fed just can't time the ball or hit Ralph's FH on the rise with his BH because well it kicks up like a cobra. The most ideal way for Fed to strike his BH on a moonball is to take it on a half-volley but how often can he do that realistically? BTW I would really like to see a statistic which shows how many BHs Fed has to hit against Ralph v/s the rest of the tour on average? Would anyone like to take up the challenge? :)

Fed really has to redline his game and keep up the unbelievably high level of play he generally displays at the beginning of the match against Ralph. He has no margin to work with. The mass slower courts across the board have taken out his attacking armoury out of the equation,it's unfortunate ofcourse but the ATP will do what they want ultimately.
 
monfed said:
Well just off the top of my head, Dasco doesn't hit 5000 rpm FHs to Fed's 1HBH. His strokes from the FH wing travel flat and quick through the air which helps Fed time the ball and take it on the rise or just flat out stand and deliver,doesn't even have to think about a bad bounce or how high the ball will spit up at him.
Fed just can't time the ball or hit Ralph's FH on the rise with his BH because well it kicks up like a cobra. The most ideal way for Fed to strike his BH on a moonball is to take it on a half-volley but how often can he do that realistically?

Fed really has to redline his game and keep up the unbelievably high level of play he generally displays at the beginning of the match against Ralph. He has no margin to work with. The mass slower courts across the board have taken out his attacking armoury out of the equation,it's unfortunate ofcourse but the ATP will do what they want ultimately.
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so basically it is because nadal's forehand is different from other left handed player's forehand? as in he plays with more spin? so it has less to do with being left handed, than with the ability to generate more spin than other players? so why do you consider it as a match-up issue then? why not just say that federer is not able to handle nadal's high kicking forehand?
 
objectivity said:
so basically it is because nadal's forehand is different from other left handed player's forehand? as in he plays with more spin? so it has less to do with being left handed, than with the ability to generate more spin than other players?so why do you consider it as a match-up issue then? why not just say that federer is not able to handle nadal's high kicking forehand?
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It's a combination of both. If Ralph played right handed with his FH, he'd be another Andreev and his bread n butter CC FH would fall to Fed' FH. That's a favourable result to Federer and a HUGE weight of hitting a bazillion BHs to keep him in the rally off his back.
Ralph would have to go DTL with his FH on a consistent basis to abuse Fed's BH ,not easy to do at the same rate at which he does now. I mean the entire matchup is flipped on its head. Plus if Ralph was a rightie, he wouldn't be able to serve out wide serves on the ad court to torment Fed's BH return,this helps Ralph save a ton of Bps. Fed's BH returning makes Ralph look like Isner tbh.

If Nadal played lefty with a "flat FH" like Dasco or every other lefthander out there for that matter, his FH wouldn't have the same kinda effect on Fed's BH. Plus Fed would've been able to use his get out shot namely the off hand slice to throw Ralph off his rhythm and setup with the FH,which as of now gets eaten up. So Fed has no real options to increase his margins of comfort over Nadal. He has to go DTL with his 1HBH on a continual basis which is just not a normal shot for him, he can't turn a winner type shot into a rally type shot.

Look all that I'm saying is nothing new,I think your question is more rhetorical than anything else.
 
"whaaaaa....my butt hurts!"

Omega_7000 said:
A 32 year old injured Federer in the worst form of his career almost took out peak injury free 27 year old Nadal in the best form of his career.

That says a lot! I never imagined peak Nadal playing at his absolute best would have so much trouble dismissing an old semi-retired injured Federer.

The H2H would've been even if Nadal was good enough to go deep on hardcourts in Fed's prime.
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Paw widdle baby :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
 
monfed said:
It's a combination of both. If Ralph played right handed with his FH, he'd be another Andreev and his bread n butter CC FH would fall to Fed' FH. That's a favourable result to Federer and a HUGE weight of hitting a bazillion BHs to keep him in the rally off his back.
Ralph would have to go DTL with his FH on a consistent basis to abuse Fed's BH ,not easy to do at the same rate at which he does now. I mean the entire matchup is flipped on its head. Plus if Ralph was a rightie, he wouldn't be able to serve out wide serves on the ad court to torment Fed's BH return,this helps Ralph save a ton of Bps. Fed's BH returning makes Ralph look like Isner tbh.

If Nadal played lefty with a "flat FH" like Dasco or every other lefthander out there for that matter, his FH wouldn't have the same kinda effect on Fed's BH. Plus Fed would've been able to use his get out shot namely the off hand slice to throw Ralph off his rhythm and setup with the FH,which as of now gets eaten up. So Fed has no real options to increase his margins of comfort over Nadal. He has to go DTL with his 1HBH on a continual basis which is just not a normal shot for him, he can't turn a winner type shot into a rally type shot.

Look all that I'm saying is nothing new,I think your question is more rhetorical than anything else.
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It's not a bad "matchup ".....Nadal has 12 slams .... He beat everyone .

A bad "matchup" exists with a much lower ranked player beating a much higher ranked player for some odd reason . Safin vs Santoro come to mind .

Safin was 2-7 against Santoro. The weird style of the magician just drove Safin nuts . That was a "bad matchup "

But when you win 12 slams against everyone In the field you are just better . Unless you want to say that Nadal is a "bad matchup" against everyone on the planet .

Nadal is the only one of the big four to dominate the other three . I guess Nadal
Is a bad matchup against Joker Murray and Fed.

In fact the only losing record Nadal really has is against Davydenko at 5-6.....and that's just due to the fact that they never met on hards in a
Best of five .
 
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sbengte said:
For someone who is claimed to be the most injured player on tour with broken knees , I have yet to see Nadal show *any* sign of injury on court in all these years :lol:
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LOL over the years Nads has shown the surest sign of injury: he's lost matches!! ;)
 
Any objective tennis fan can see what pattern of play Nadal employs against fed and how many errors Fed makes off his backhand. Also, Nadal was beating him when he was 17 years old and ranked 34 in the world...If that's not a bad matchup then I don't know what is.

It's unfortunate that his biggest rival who is a great player is also the worse matchup for him. The combination of bad matchup + great player would spell disaster for anyone.
 
monfed said:
It's a combination of both. If Ralph played right handed with his FH, he'd be another Andreev and his bread n butter CC FH would fall to Fed' FH. That's a favourable result to Federer and a HUGE weight of hitting a bazillion BHs to keep him in the rally off his back.
Ralph would have to go DTL with his FH on a consistent basis to abuse Fed's BH ,not easy to do at the same rate at which he does now. I mean the entire matchup is flipped on its head. Plus if Ralph was a rightie, he wouldn't be able to serve out wide serves on the ad court to torment Fed's BH return,this helps Ralph save a ton of Bps. Fed's BH returning makes Ralph look like Isner tbh.

If Nadal played lefty with a "flat FH" like Dasco or every other lefthander out there for that matter, his FH wouldn't have the same kinda effect on Fed's BH. Plus Fed would've been able to use his get out shot namely the off hand slice to throw Ralph off his rhythm and setup with the FH,which as of now gets eaten up. So Fed has no real options to increase his margins of comfort over Nadal. He has to go DTL with his 1HBH on a continual basis which is just not a normal shot for him, he can't turn a winner type shot into a rally type shot.

Look all that I'm saying is nothing new,I think your question is more rhetorical than anything else.
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yes it is rhetorical because i wanted to get you to acknowledge that nadal is a great player to be able to beat federer. and it isn't just some "matchup" issue that you like to boil it down to unfairly.
 
objectivity said:
yes it is rhetorical because i wanted to get you to acknowledge that nadal is a great player to be able to beat federer. and it isn't just some "matchup" issue that you like to boil it down to unfairly.
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Nothing to acknowledge, Ralph enjoys a matchup advantage over Fed just like Davy enjoys a matchup advantage over Ralph. I mean Ralph would rather play Fed on a HC than Davy, even moreso on fast HC, that pretty much sums it up.
 
Omega_7000 said:
Any objective tennis fan can see what pattern of play Nadal employs against fed and how many errors Fed makes off his backhand. Also, Nadal was beating him when he was 17 years old and ranked 34 in the world...If that's not a bad matchup then I don't know what is.

It's unfortunate that his biggest rival who is a great player is also the worse matchup for him. The combination of bad matchup + great player would spell disaster for anyone.
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BTW even after a 17 YO Ralph straight setted Fed at Miami 04, he couldnt go on to win the tournament. I mean WTF? Infact Fed was dominating everyone except Ralph who was losing to the guys who Fed was almost destroying,esp on HC,guys like Blake,Youhzny,Ferrer,Gonzales. How much more proof do the haters want? Something tells me haters still gonna hate!
 
monfed said:
Nothing to acknowledge, Ralph enjoys a matchup advantage over Fed just like Davy enjoys a matchup advantage over Ralph. I mean Ralph would rather play Fed on a HC than Davy, even moreso on fast HC, that pretty much sums it up.
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i don't think davydenko has a matchup advantage over rafa. he just played better than rafa in those 6 wins. period. and yeah, he is a better player than rafa man to man. i don't find it problematic to acknowledge that. facts are facts.

i don't understand why you have to get into all sorts of mental gymnastics just to justify a self created world order where a certain somebody has to be the greatest of all time and only loses due to some "matchup" problem. why can't you just acknowledge that nadal is a better player than federer man to man, but federer is the greatest player of all time in terms of career statistics?
 
monfed said:
BTW even after a 17 YO Ralph straight setted Fed at Miami 04, he couldnt go on to win the tournament. I mean WTF? Infact Fed was dominating everyone except Ralph who was losing to the guys who Fed was almost destroying,esp on HC,guys like Blake,Youhzny,Ferrer,Gonzales. How much more proof do the haters want? Something tells me haters still gonna hate!
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Exactly .
 
monfed said:
BTW even after a 17 YO Ralph straight setted Fed at Miami 04, he couldnt go on to win the tournament. I mean WTF? Infact Fed was dominating everyone except Ralph who was losing to the guys who Fed was almost destroying,esp on HC,guys like Blake,Youhzny,Ferrer,Gonzales. How much more proof do the haters want? Something tells me haters still gonna hate!
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oh by this absurd reasoning, then federer has a match-up advantage against pete sampras, and that is the only reason why he beat him in 2001. after all, fed was destroyed later on in the tournament. and pete sampras used to chomp on rafter, ivanisevic etc.

absurd.
 
objectivity said:
oh by this absurd reasoning, then federer has a match-up advantage against pete sampras, and that is the only reason why he beat him in 2001. after all, fed was destroyed later on in the tournament. and pete sampras used to chomp on rafter, ivanisevic etc.

absurd.
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Can you describe what matchup advantage fed had over sampras?

Also, you're grasping at straws.
 
ROFLMAO 27 peak Nadal. Thats still funny. He can't even get out of the first round of wimbledon these days. Hell he even he was reaching the finals in 2006 with barely ANY grass court tourneys under his belt.

Also, despite the fact that hes undefeated on hard courts so far, he still has to win the big one, and a lot of these wins are coming just on sheer competitive will power. He hasn't been "dominant" in most of these wins he has on hard courts.

His clay level is probably half of what it was before as well.

Its rafa's mental toughness and pure fighting spirit that is making up for his CLEAR decline in play.
 
well...Nadal does have better career winning % record than Federer in Grand Slams..

and Nadal also does have the top career winning % of everyone in history
 
Well its easier to justify 21 losses than it is 1 loss (Where one guy was clearly near the end of his career and the other was playing above his years that particular day)

We can't draw many conclusions from ONE Match. Its like drawing conclusions from the Sampras-Fed exos in 2007 (where Sampras brought the firepower to Fed all the way Sampras was 5 years retired at that time and Federer was at his peak as a player).

We CAN however draw many conclusions from 31 matches.
 
objectivity said:
my point is, THERE ISN'T ONE. fed just played better than sampras that day. period. why get into all these mental gymnastics to justify one (or 21) loss?
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Yeah. Thought so.

Why are you being so defensive? It's obvious Nadal has a huge advantage over Fed...Look at the type of pattern he uses in every match. This does not make him a bad player. He just got lucky to meet a player who he has an advantage against on the biggest stages and was his biggest rival...and unlucky for Fed.
 
Omega_7000 said:
Yeah. Thought so.

Why are you being so defensive? It's obvious Nadal has a huge advantage over Fed...Look at the type of pattern he uses in every match. This does not make him a bad player. He just got lucky to meet a player who he has an advantage against on the biggest stages and was his biggest rival...and unlucky for Fed.
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it isn't some "pattern". he knows how to pick on federer's weakness, and federer can't do it against him when they play. that is why nadal is a better player than federer man to man. why is that "unfair" which you seem to imply? look at federer playing against fernando gonzalez at AO 2007. federer was playing almost every shot to fernando's backhand, because he fears fernando's forehand and knows the backhand is weak. how is that not legit? so did federer win only because of some matchup advantage? and not because he is way better than fernando gonzalez?
 
90's Clay said:
ROFLMAO 27 peak Nadal. Thats still funny. He can't even get out of the first round of wimbledon these days. Hell he even he was reaching the finals in 2006 with barely ANY grass court tourneys under his belt.

Also, despite the fact that hes undefeated on hard courts so far, he still has to win the big one, and a lot of these wins are coming just on sheer competitive will power. He hasn't been "dominant" in most of these wins he has on hard courts.

His clay level is probably half of what it was before as well.

Its rafa's mental toughness and pure fighting spirit that is making up for his CLEAR decline in play.
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Nadal, the No. 3-ranked player in the world and No. 4 seed here, rides a remarkable post-surgery surge into his semifinal matchup Saturday against Tomas Berdych. He has started 2013 with a career-best 51-3 match record, including 13-0 on hard courts.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-western-southern-open-quarterfinals/2666641/

Less than 24 hours after Saturday's hard-fought, semi-final win over world number one Novak Djokovic, Nadal, playing with all the conviction and freedom of a man near the peak of his powers, crushed Milos Raonic in front of the Canadian's home crowd to claim his 25th career Masters title.

Some observers have suggested that Nadal is in the best hardcourt form of his career making him one of the red hot favourites to lift the season's final grand slam.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sns-rt-us-tennis-cincinnati-nadal-20130813,0,7192978.story
 
objectivity said:
it isn't some "pattern". he knows how to pick on federer's weakness, and federer can't do it against him when they play. that is why nadal is a better player than federer man to man. why is that "unfair" which you seem to imply? look at federer playing against fernando gonzalez at AO 2007. federer was playing almost every shot to fernando's backhand, because he fears fernando's forehand and knows the backhand is weak. how is that not legit? so did federer win only because of some matchup advantage? and not because he is way better than fernando gonzalez?
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I never said it's unfair or not legit. :confused:

The point is that Fed was/is unlucky to have his biggest rival have such a huge match-up advantage against him.
 
objectivity said:
it isn't some "pattern". he knows how to pick on federer's weakness, and federer can't do it against him when they play. that is why nadal is a better player than federer man to man. why is that "unfair" which you seem to imply? look at federer playing against fernando gonzalez at AO 2007. federer was playing almost every shot to fernando's backhand, because he fears fernando's forehand and knows the backhand is weak. how is that not legit? so did federer win only because of some matchup advantage? and not because he is way better than fernando gonzalez?
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To me its not just the match up issue,more of a combination of Nadal being an all time great and the match up issue.How do you explain Federer losing to Nadal on HC in 04 and 06 and Nadal losing to guys like Gonzales,Blake,Davy,Roddick etc who didnt trouble Fed at all.I agree with you when you say that its not just because of match up issue that Nadal wins.

There are lot of match up issues in tennis Safin-Santoro ,Nadal-Davy etc.Tennis is basically a game of match ups.From my experience I can say this for sure,there are always a certain kind of players that trouble you but not the guys you beat easily.Thats the way it is and makes tennis that much more exciting.
 
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Nitish said:
To me its not just the match up issue,more of a combination of Nadal being an all time great and the match up issue.How do you explain Federer losing to Nadal on HC in 04 and 06 and Nadal losing to guys like Gonzales,Blake,Davy,Roddick etc who didnt trouble Fed at all.I agree with you when you say that its not just because of match up issue that Nadal wins.

There are lot of match up issues in tennis Safin-Santoro ,Nadal-Davy etc.
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Exactly what I was trying to say too...

Omega_7000 said:
Any objective tennis fan can see what pattern of play Nadal employs against fed and how many errors Fed makes off his backhand. Also, Nadal was beating him when he was 17 years old and ranked 34 in the world...If that's not a bad matchup then I don't know what is.

It's unfortunate that his biggest rival who is a great player is also the worse matchup for him. The combination of bad matchup + great player would spell disaster for anyone.
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Omega_7000 said:
I never said it's unfair or not legit. :confused:

The point is that Fed was/is unlucky to have his biggest rival have such a huge match-up advantage against him.
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actually doesn't james blake have the same so called "match-up" issue against nadal? how come james blake has a much better H2H against nadal than federer has against nadal?
 
objectivity said:
actually doesn't james blake have the same so called "match-up" issue against nadal? how come james blake has a much better H2H against nadal than federer has against nadal?
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How many times has James Blake played Nadal on clay? Yeah, None!

If Nadal was able to go deeper on hardcourts in Fed's prime, it would've been more even too...Now that Fed is wayyyyyyyyy past his prime ,playing with a bad back, changing rackets every week, lowest ranking in 11 years is he facing Fed on fast outdoor court tourny and possibly USO...Fed would've raked up wins on fast hardcourts if nadal would've gone deeper between 2004 and 2007.
 
Omega_7000 said:
How many times has James Blake played Nadal on clay? Yeah, None!

If Nadal was able to go deeper on hardcourts in Fed's prime, it would've been more even too...Now that Fed is wayyyyyyyyy past his prime ,playing with a bad back, changing rackets every week, lowest ranking in 11 years is he facing Fed on fast outdoor court tourny and possibly USO.
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so now the issue is about the court surface? how many things are you conflating at once? how much mental gymnastics are you doing really?
 
Oh dear, here comes the the "if nadal would have reached more hard finals.. bla bla" again. Federer fans are really blind about this.

The outcome would have been the same, deal with it. It's not about surfaces, its about their games being matched up, and also about the demons and ghosts Federer has everytime he faces Rafa.

Nadal beat him in Miami 2004 when he was just a kid and Roger was in his absolute prime. He also beat him in the fast Dubai (absolute prime too), beat him in Wimbledon (heartbreaking loss), beat him in the AO finals (he was in good form there as well) and left him crying.

Roger must thank Rafa for not reaching more hard finals in the past.
 
Omega_7000 said:
Good counter argument. :roll:
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ok does djokovic enjoy a match-up advantage over federer? after all djokovic's stronger wing is his backhand and that plays into federer's forehand. how about murray against federer? murray's stronger wing is also his backhand. so why does federer enjoy such favorable H2Hs against them? i used to think its just because federer is a better player than them. but now i am forced to think in terms of "match-up".
 
objectivity said:
ok does djokovic enjoy a match-up advantage over federer? after all djokovic's stronger wing is his backhand and that plays into federer's forehand. how about murray against federer? murray's stronger wing is also his backhand. so why does federer enjoy such favorable H2Hs against them? i used to think its just because federer is a better player than them. but now i am forced to think in terms of "match-up".
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actually federer has losing record against murray too... lol... oops. maybe u are right after all. it is a matchup issue. lol.
 
objectivity said:
ok does djokovic enjoy a match-up advantage over federer? after all djokovic's stronger wing is his backhand and that plays into federer's forehand. how about murray against federer? murray's stronger wing is also his backhand. so why does federer enjoy such favorable H2Hs against them? i used to think its just because federer is a better player than them. but now i am forced to think in terms of "match-up".
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Once again how do you explain this?


To me its not just the match up issue,more of a combination of Nadal being an all time great and the match up issue.How do you explain Federer losing to Nadal on HC in 04 and 06 and Nadal losing to guys like Gonzales,Blake,Davy,Roddick etc who didnt trouble Fed at all.I agree with you when you say that its not just because of match up issue that Nadal wins.

There are lot of match up issues in tennis Safin-Santoro ,Nadal-Davy etc.Tennis is basically a game of match ups.From my experience I can say this for sure,there are always a certain kind of players that trouble you but not the guys you beat easily.Thats the way it is and makes tennis that much more exciting.

How can you say tennis is not a game of match ups?
 
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