Can Federer only beat Nadal now when Rafa has a 3 hours + match the day before?

[Heracles]

I noticed one thing:

Since 2008, Nadal and Federer met 8 times, and Nadal won 6 of these matchs, and Federer only 2.

But more interesting is that each time that Federer won, Nadal had a marathon the day right before his match with Federer.

In Madrid in 2009, he had an epic 4 hours match with Djokovic and lost in the final. In the WTF, Nadal had a gruelling 3 hours and 15 minutes match with Murray which ended also in the TB of the third set.

Federer was not able to win a single match against Nadal when the spaniard was not in the red physically.

It seems that having Nadal play a marathon before the day of their match is now Federer only hope to defeat Nadal.

 

[niff]

What an original topic.

 

[li0scc0]

So in other words, Nadal has poor conditioning, is that your contention?

 

[Murrayfan31]

Shanghai Masters Cup already forgotten? Federer owned Nadal there and Nadal was rested.

 

[FeVer]

I noticed one thing:

Since 2008, Nadal and Federer met 8 times, and Nadal won 6 of these matchs, and Federer only 2.

But more interesting is that each time that Federer won, Nadal had a marathon the day right before his match with Federer.

In Madrid in 2009, he had an epic 4 hours match with Djokovic and lost in the final. In the WTF, Nadal had a gruelling 3 hours and 15 minutes match with Murray which ended also in the TB of the third set.

Federer was not able to win a single match against Nadal when the spaniard was not in the red physically.

It seems that having Nadal play a marathon before the day of their match is now Federer only hope to defeat Nadal.

As much as I would like to agree with you, Nadal's perfectly capable of beating Federer when he's exhausted (a la AO 2009), so his fatigue can't really be used as an excuse. Usually when a number of factors (perhaps a combination of fatigue, Fed on form, and the court surface etc) go against Nadal, does Federer win.

 

[fedfan08]

So in other words, Nadal has poor conditioning, is that your contention?

Must be.

 

[mandy01]

So in other words, Nadal has poor conditioning, is that your contention?

That does indeed seem to be the contention.If only it were consistent with the usual claims aka -"Nadal is a physical specimen!" I'd have bought it!

 

[Emet74]

Hmm. Since 2009 Fed and Nadal have played 4 times and Nadal had a marathon semi prior to three of the four meetings.

Nadal got lucky in AO where Fed messed up the match but went down at the other two. Had Fed won AO '09 it would have been attributed to Rafa's tiredness.

Madrid 2010 is the only match they had where Rafa was rested in the past 2.5 years, so I think the sample size is too small.

Obviously Nadal is always the favorite on clay, but the jury is still out on hardcourt matches until they start to play more regularly, if they do.

 

[Heracles]

So in other words, Nadal has poor conditioning, is that your contention?

Nadal physical problems are his achille heel.

 

[Heracles]

As much as I would like to agree with you, Nadal's perfectly capable of beating Federer when he's exhausted (a la AO 2009), so his fatigue can't really be used as an excuse. Usually when a number of factors (perhaps a combination of fatigue, Fed on form, and the court surface etc) go against Nadal, does Federer win.

Australian Open is a bad exemple. Nadal had a full day to rest himself and was not playing during this day. It was not the same case. Same case would be Nadal-Djokovic semi final in Hambourg 2008 and Nadal won that match and then the final.

The conclusion is:

Nadal can beat Federer when he play a marathon the day before.

Federer does not seem to be able to beat Nadal anymore unless he just played a marathon. That seems his only chance to win.

 

[mandy01]

Australian Open is a bad exemple. Nadal had a full day to rest himself and was not playing during this day. .

...and yet the board was full of pre-emptive excuses.:-|
Of course now that he won that match but lost the other two his fans managed to spin that in some way but it dosen't change the fact that they were full of it before the final.

 

[Manus Domini]

Few things:

of those 6 wins of Nadal, 4 were on clay. In fact, of the 14-8 lead of Nadal over Federer, 10 of those wins are on clay.

In regards to the AO, Nadal had just played 5+ hours and Fed was far more rested. If his only chance to beat Nadal is when Rafa is marathoned out, looks like this is the opposite.

The actual cause of Rafa's huge lead is the amount of clay matches they played...

 

[Emet74]

Federer does not seem to be able to beat Nadal anymore unless he just played a marathon. That seems his only chance to win.

As I wrote above, Fed has faced an non-marathon-playing Nadal exactly once since July 08 which is a long time ago.

Madrid '10 Fed was just coming out of a bad slump so had his own issues going on and Rafa is great on clay of course.

You could be right but there need to be more matches before coming to that conclusion.

 

[Cyan]

Nadal's perfectly capable of beating Federer when he's exhausted (a la AO 2009).

That was shocking, actually.

 

[Emet74]

That was shocking, actually.

Fed lost that match due to a combination of nerves and poor serving/serving confidence stemming from his back injury.

Rafa played well but below his best I think; he didn't need his best that day to win.

 

[Deleted member 77403]

It's because Nadal is actually God. No one beats God. Especially not Federer.


Regarding the epic of Madrid 09. The actual play was just over 45 minutes, from the first point to the last. There is a full video of it on You Tube, and it was actually one of the posters from here that took out the rest in between and showed the match with nothing but actual points being played. You should be able to find it, I think it was JennyS who posted this.

That leaves 3 hours and 15 minutes for sitting in the chair, bouncing the balls, adjusting water bottles...and so on.

Personally, Madrid 09 was my best match of 09, great play from both players!!!!! Even better than Nadal-Verdasco imho.

 

[nadalbestclass]

It couldn't be that the thread was started to promote hate and ****ism could it? No, it couldn't, what a preposterous idea.

 

[aphex]

Nadal physical problems are his achille heel.

Heracles's mental problems are Heracles's Achilles heel.

 

[shazbot]

When Rafa and Djokovic are playing I wanna slit my wrists. Between Djokovic bouncing the ball 19 times for each serve and Rafa doing all his pre-serve and change over rituals, I might as well just watch paint dry instead of watching tennis.

 

[cc0509]

What an original topic.

LOL, I agree. Seriously people, give it a rest already!

 

[JustBob]

THE TAUROS MAJORCAUS (or Majorcan bull) was a handsome bull sent forth from the sea by Poseidon. The Majorcan Queen Xisca lusted after the animal and coupled with it, hidden inside a wooden cow crafted by the artificer Uncle Toni. She gave birth to the monstrous Minotauros, a creature with the head of a bull.

Herakles was commanded to fetch the bull as one of his Twelve Labours. Upon completion of this task Herakles set the bull free and it eventually came to the Swiss town of Basel where it laid waste to the countryside. There it was destroyed by the hero Federer as a sacrifice to the Goddess Mirka. The gods placed the bull among the stars as the Constellation Taurus, along with the Hydra, Nemean Lion and various Grand Slam trophies.

 

[PrinceMoron]

Jim Courier putting on his running shoes after beating Agassi, to show that he was not tired and hadn't had enough of a workout.

Federer bounding up the stairs after a marathon Wimbledon final against ARod.

Becker getting his sleeping pills wrong and staggering onto court against Sampras

That was interesting. This thread is not.

 

[TBrady]

 

[ledwix]

Nadal should play shorter matches then, if that's the secret...

 

[Cup8489]

Nadal should have purposely lost both of those marathon matches, so that Federer would have a better chance of losing in the final, and Nadal wouldn't have to worry about the H2H.

K, someone make a new, more interesting thread.

 

[AM95]

can nadal only beat a 28+ year old federer?

shouldnt nadal be able to recover faster than a 29 yr old.

/thread

 

[msc886]

Can Nadal only beat Federer because of his mental blocks/chokes/mono/back problems?

Efficiency/endurance/conditioning is part of the game just like choking, fatigue is not an excuse, his game is just not good enough. lol A lot of Nadal fans seem to be kids who don't understand how the real world works. Life is unfair and those who deal with it do better.

 

[Sentinel]

It couldn't be that the thread was started to promote hate and ****ism could it? No, it couldn't, what a preposterous idea.

haha, made me laugh

 

[Fate Archer]

THE TAUROS MAJORCAUS (or Majorcan bull) was a handsome bull sent forth from the sea by Poseidon. The Majorcan Queen Xisca lusted after the animal and coupled with it, hidden inside a wooden cow crafted by the artificer Uncle Toni. She gave birth to the monstrous Minotauros, a creature with the head of a bull.

Herakles was commanded to fetch the bull as one of his Twelve Labours. Upon completion of this task Herakles set the bull free and it eventually came to the Swiss town of Basel where it laid waste to the countryside. There it was destroyed by the hero Federer as a sacrifice to the Goddess Mirka. The gods placed the bull among the stars as the Constellation Taurus, along with the Hydra, Nemean Lion and various Grand Slam trophies.

No please!! Don't do this!!! This thread doesn't deserve such wits!

Great post, btw.

 

[sunny_cali]

THE TAUROS MAJORCAUS (or Majorcan bull) was a handsome bull sent forth from the sea by Poseidon. The Majorcan Queen Xisca lusted after the animal and coupled with it, hidden inside a wooden cow crafted by the artificer Uncle Toni. She gave birth to the monstrous Minotauros, a creature with the head of a bull.

Herakles was commanded to fetch the bull as one of his Twelve Labours. Upon completion of this task Herakles set the bull free and it eventually came to the Swiss town of Basel where it laid waste to the countryside. There it was destroyed by the hero Federer as a sacrifice to the Goddess Mirka. The gods placed the bull among the stars as the Constellation Taurus, along with the Hydra, Nemean Lion and various Grand Slam trophies.

LOL. Made my day

 

[lidoazndiabloboi]

Nadal only plays marathon matches because he cant dispatch opponents quickly (butt picking, wasting time, and just trying to bore the opponents to death) Whereas Federer can play the exact match but finish in half the time.

 

[nadal_slam_king]

Jim Courier putting on his running shoes after beating Agassi, to show that he was not tired and hadn't had enough of a workout.

Federer bounding up the stairs after a marathon Wimbledon final against ARod.

Becker getting his sleeping pills wrong and staggering onto court against Sampras

That was interesting. This thread is not.

That was interesting? :shock:

 

[PrinceMoron]

That was interesting? :shock:

Oh right, you were watching on TV, sitting on a sofa getting fat like ARod...

Sorry, we were there, member's guests and it was impressive in real life. Federer leapt 4 foot clean in the air and then jumped - both feet together - up the 16 steps 2 at a time. ARod could not even get out of his chair. Too fat and too slow, and that is why he could not get his feet in the right place, missed 2 easy shots and got broke.

You should try actually being there, you know it is what tennis fans do.

:]

 

[nadal_slam_king]

Oh right, you were watching on TV, sitting on a sofa getting fat like ARod...

Sorry, we were there, member's guests and it was impressive in real life. Federer leapt 4 foot clean in the air and then jumped - both feet together - up the 16 steps 2 at a time. ARod could not even get out of his chair. Too fat and too slow, and that is why he could not get his feet in the right place, missed 2 easy shots and got broke.

You should try actually being there, you know it is what tennis fans do.

:]

Very derogatory and very uneducated on the matter of tennis matches I attend. No surprise though coming from a ff. Ignore list inductee.

 

[dandelion_smiley]

Well for such an animal like Nadal a 3 hour match the day before is just a warm-up, no?

 

[PrinceMoron]

Very derogatory and very uneducated on the matter of tennis matches I attend. No surprise though coming from a ff. Ignore list inductee.

The point was that if you were lucky enough to have Debenture seats or be a guest of a member, you would have seen Federer come in for photos with Laver. And you would have seen he looked really fresh, surprisingly so after a long match. Most players would have taken the lift, not jumped up the stairs.

My friends call me Prince, but you can call me Moron.

 

[Sentinel]

^^ LOL, no he's reserved that name for himself

 

[abmk]

^^ LOL, no he's reserved that name for himself

LOL

10 chars !

 

[nadal_slam_king]

^^ LOL, no he's reserved that name for himself

Reported, hopefully for the last time.

 

[DeShaun]

What is Rafa thinking when he allows himself to get dragged into these marathon matches, when he can see as well as everyone else that Federer is looming on the other side of the draw? When opponents place pressure on Rafa he digs deep within himself, usually trying to out gut them. He's very successful at this. But as styles of play go, it does not encourage him to conserve much energy, nor assist him in winning points a soon as possible. His style of play on which he tends to lean instinctively when being severely pressured is not exactly what you would call first-strike tennis--he grinds with the absolute best of them, but this method is probably not the most intelligent way of managing certain draws. Rafa's greatly imposing on-court physicality is used, as was Becker's, very effectively in psyching out opponents, so when Rafa due to fatigue loses this mental, phyche-out based advantage and can no longer pull through a match based on his other (tennis) skills alone, I don't feel too bad for him because this one advantage which he wields over the field has all by itself won him countless matches.

 

[veroniquem]

To OP:that's true although indoor Fed is probably the better player overall, regardless of the circumstances. On clay, there's no doubt about it. In best of 5, it's not clear whether a marathon semi for Rafa would be enough for Fed to win (it wasn't enough at AO 2009). As long as there is a day off between matches (slams), 1 marathon match is not gonna help Fed much. Of course in events like masters and WTF, with a much shorter recovery time, it's a different story.

 

[Heracles]

No marathon yesterday?

Expected result today. Simple.

 

[HunterST]

No marathon yesterday?

Expected result today. Simple.

I think Nadal can only beat Federer after Roger has had a marathon match. Fed went 3 sets with Soderling and Nadal had an easy 2 setter with Berdych.

 

[msc886]

^beat me to it. Can't have double standards.

 

[Sentinel]

I think this exo result proved beyond doubt that Rafa is impossible to beat all things being equal.

Only if he is exhausted is there a remote possibiilty of his being beaten.

 

[HunterST]

That's another point. This was an exhibition match. Although I'm sure Roger wanted to win, he probably wasn't using his "a-game" tactics. Then again, Nadal probably wasn't either.

 

[billnepill]

It appears Nadal can only beat the tougher opponents in a 3 hours + match, so yes , probably the OP got it right most of the times