Cincy 2010 QF: Rafael Nadal [1] vs Marcos Baghdatis

Who wins?


  • Total voters
    49
  • Poll closed .
For the first time..I'm actually excited about nadal's chances now.

Now a fresh nadal will enter the US open.:):):)

Nadal's loss today is wonderful news,
It now means uncle toni realises about peaking for slams,
it's 4 years too late but better late thannever,

Now nadal will get 4 lemmings..1st-4th rounds...
this will be 4 more matches to practice his game..and decide what style
he wants to adopt...it's impossible he will get murray early..so good chance someone else takes him out eg soderling...so thats just 3 matches left
sorry guys but rafas chances just increased for the US Open.

and remember kids you can't win slams tired or injured
 

Love Game

Talk Tennis Guru
He's talking in terms of overall results, not the head-to-head.

I can see that interpretation, so perhaps it's ambiguous, b/c what he wrote was, "DP is an excellent player and his GS win was remarkable (beating Fedal back to back), but as far as results go, Nadal is BY FAR the superior HC player."

How can Player X be called "by far superior" to Player Y on HC, when Player Y actually has a winning record over Player X on HC ... especially in recent times such as 2009 ... and especially too when Player X turned professional 4 years PRIOR to Player Y????

Splain me that K? :)
 
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The-Champ

Legend
For the first time..I'm actually excited about nadal's chances now.

Now a fresh nadal will enter the US open.:):):)

Nadal's loss today is wonderful news,
It now means uncle toni realises about peaking for slams,
it's 4 years too late but better late thannever,


I'm glad, I'm not the only one. If Rafa doesn't win it this year..then that's it for him. He will never win it.
 

ballboy48

Banned
I can see that interpretation, so perhaps it's ambiguous, b/c what he wrote was, "DP is an excellent player and his GS win was remarkable (beating Fedal back to back), but as far as results go, Nadal is BY FAR the superior HC player."

How can Player X be called "by far superior" to Player Y on HC, when Player Y actually has a winning record over Player X on HC ... especially in recent times such as 2009????

Splain me that K? :)

Well Federer is by far the superior player to Nadal, yet the h2h....
 

Love Game

Talk Tennis Guru
Well Federer is by far the superior player to Nadal, yet the h2h....

just checking ... in your explanation, which is Player X and which is Player Y?

Because if roger is X and rafa is Y, then I think you may have just proved my point, not the other guy's
 

Love Game

Talk Tennis Guru
Don't the names preceding and following the word 'superior' make that clear?

check my edit ... I realized I needed to explain more! :)

edit: b/c for your scenario to be an answer to my question, then
Nadal would have to have a winning record over Federer on HC.

Does he?
 
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abmk

Bionic Poster
it isn't the first time that nadal DF'ed at a crucial moment .. for heaven't sake

he did it the 4th set breaker vs fed in 2008 wimby final and it very nearly cost him

he did it in the 2010 semi vs murray too in the TB to hand him SP , but murray missed his first serve and pushed at that point allowing nadal to dictate and save the SP

but this time baghdatis made him pay for it. well done baggy !

bah, nadal knows when exactly to avoid fed !

No, he did not.

yes, he did , when up 5-2 in the breaker

Here to refresh your memory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN-WcXmn9gI
 

Love Game

Talk Tennis Guru
ahh ok that scenario does not fit Roger and Rafa.

your thought was good, and maybe there is a better example ... or perhaps Mustard or perhaps the person who made the statement in the first place could splain it to me!

I really would like to know! :D
 

abmk

Bionic Poster
your thought was good, and maybe there is a better example ... or perhaps Mustard or perhaps the person who made the statement in the first place could splain it to me!

I really would like to know! :D

I'll explain : davydenko is 5-1 vs nadal on HC ... yet he has accomplished lesser than nadal on HC and is an inferior HC player ... its do with the matchups ..

end of story
 
For the first time..I'm actually excited about nadal's chances now.

Now a fresh nadal will enter the US open.:):):)

Nadal's loss today is wonderful news,
It now means uncle toni realises about peaking for slams,
it's 4 years too late but better late thannever,

Now nadal will get 4 lemmings..1st-4th rounds...
this will be 4 more matches to practice his game..and decide what style
he wants to adopt...it's impossible he will get murray early..so good chance someone else takes him out eg soderling...so thats just 3 matches left
sorry guys but rafas chances just increased for the US Open.

and remember kids you can't win slams tired or injured

Yep because Petzchner and Hasse were real lemmings at Wimbledon...your post is a bunch of garbage.
 

Love Game

Talk Tennis Guru
I'm glad baggy won. We need an arab in the mix of great players...now that arazi and el aynaoui are long gone.

erm ... I havent read far enough to see if anyone asked you this question, but .......

question: are there arabs in sweden who wear christian crosses around their necks and regularly make the sign of the cross in public? :shock:
 

Love Game

Talk Tennis Guru
I'll explain : davydenko is 5-1 vs nadal on HC ... yet he has accomplished lesser than nadal on HC and is an inferior HC player ... its do with the matchups ..

end of story

hmmm ... not exactly ... you still have some more splaining to do to connect up the dots ;)

PAgony wrote:
1. "DP [delPotro] is an excellent player . . . but as far as results go, Nadal is BY FAR the superior HC player."
That's just as true a statement as:
2. Nadal is an excellent player . . . but as far as results go, Federer is BY FAR the superior clay court player.

My objection to Mustard's explanation that it was about H2H between the two players:
3. How can Player X be called "by far superior" to Player Y on HC, when Player Y actually has a winning record over Player X on HC ... especially in recent times such as 2009 ... and especially too when Player X turned professional 4 years PRIOR to Player Y????

To apply this in analyzing #2 above, Nadal = Player Y (as is delPotro in PAgony's statement), and Federer is Player X (as is Nadal in PAgony's statement [#1]). Putting the variables into their appropriate blanks, the question parallel to my #3 would be:

4. How can Federer be called "BY FAR superior" to Nadal on clay, when Nadal actually has a winning record over Federer on clay courts?

Your example about Davydenko does not answer my question #3 above or its paralell #4 .... YET ... maybe it will if you splain it further, show the connections to my original question (#3) as I have done.

Bottom Line:
Nadal cannot be truthfully stated to be "BY FAR superior" to delPotro on HC despite their H2H on HC any more than Federer can truthfully be stated to be "BY FAR superior" to Nadal on clay despite their H2H on clay.
 
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BreakPoint

Bionic Poster
Once again, Nadal manages to avoid playing Federer on a fast hardcourt. He must be afraid of Federer and afraid of losing his H2H advantage so he only wants to keep playing Federer on clay. :???:
 

TheTruth

G.O.A.T.
Once again, Nadal manages to avoid playing Federer on a fast hardcourt. He must be afraid of Federer and afraid of losing his H2H advantage so he only wants to keep playing Federer on clay. :???:

Not a bad strategy, but he does gives the #2 player plenty of chances to even it out on clay. They meet there, but...

Hey, aren't they 4-5 on hard?

Anyway, congrats to Baghs. Nice to see him pull a tough one out.
 

Talker

Hall of Fame
Once again, Nadal manages to avoid playing Federer on a fast hardcourt. He must be afraid of Federer and afraid of losing his H2H advantage so he only wants to keep playing Federer on clay. :???:

Nadal still loses in another H2H stat, the results for the "same tournaments entered".
 

namelessone

Legend
Congrats to Marcos, he deserved one victory against Rafa, he has been close many times but failed.

I haven't seen any of Rafa's matches due to timezone difference but I have seen highlights and it's no change from toronto, same game, same mistakes, so this defeat should come as no surprise to anybody since Marcos is a very good HC'er and had just taken down Birdie in straights.

Rafa is definitely not winning USO this year or any other year with this approach. As much as we go on and on about technical issues(and those are very important) the guy just doesn't like hardcourts. He can't get into a groove on them, they are bad for his health and he doesn't look like he enjoys playing on them to be honest. You get a sense of freedom about Rafa when he moves on clay or grass and same applies to his shots there, everything about HC Rafa is strained.

When I read that he lost I knew that *******s would go on about "avoiding Roger on fast HC". Look, he lost in three, it's not like he wasn't trying, Baggie was just better. Not to mention that he fought hard against Benneteau too, does that look like a guy that is tanking?
What these people keep missing time and time again is that Fedal have been nr.1 and 2 since 05' and they usually can meet only in FINALS. This was one of the very few times when they could have met in semifinals.

Fed is nr.1 player on all surfaces except clay, Rafa is nr.1 on clay and nr.2 on grass but maybe 5-6 on hardcourts. Rafa's inability to reach HC finals(due to his solid but not great HC game) coupled with the fact that they can only play eachother in FINALS 95% of the time is the reason why they have met so rarely on hardcourts. Look, from Cincy 09' up until Cincy 10', Rafa has made every HC MS SF(Cincy,Shanghai,Paris,IW,Miami,Toronto), if that's not solid I don't know what is. If the seeding formula allowed them to meet in SF more often they would have more HC matches.
 

2slik

Semi-Pro
Congrats to Marcos, he deserved one victory against Rafa, he has been close many times but failed.

I haven't seen any of Rafa's matches due to timezone difference but I have seen highlights and it's no change from toronto, same game, same mistakes, so this defeat should come as no surprise to anybody since Marcos is a very good HC'er and had just taken down Birdie in straights.

Rafa is definitely not winning USO this year or any other year with this approach. As much as we go on and on about technical issues(and those are very important) the guy just doesn't like hardcourts. He can't get into a groove on them, they are bad for his health and he doesn't look like he enjoys playing on them to be honest. You get a sense of freedom about Rafa when he moves on clay or grass and same applies to his shots there, everything about HC Rafa is strained.

When I read that he lost I knew that *******s would go on about "avoiding Roger on fast HC". Look, he lost in three, it's not like he wasn't trying, Baggie was just better. Not to mention that he fought hard against Benneteau too, does that look like a guy that is tanking?
What these people keep missing time and time again is that Fedal have been nr.1 and 2 since 05' and they usually can meet only in FINALS. This was one of the very few times when they could have met in semifinals.

Fed is nr.1 player on all surfaces except clay, Rafa is nr.1 on clay and nr.2 on grass but maybe 5-6 on hardcourts. Rafa's inability to reach HC finals(due to his solid but not great HC game) coupled with the fact that they can only play eachother in FINALS 95% of the time is the reason why they have met so rarely on hardcourts. Look, from Cincy 09' up until Cincy 10', Rafa has made every HC MS SF(Cincy,Shanghai,Paris,IW,Miami,Toronto), if that's not solid I don't know what is. If the seeding formula allowed them to meet in SF more often they would have more HC matches.

I do not think there is anything wrong with Nadal's movement on Hardcourts. I just think he has very bad court positioning in general. It is not noticed on clay or grass because he can slide a lot on these surfaces but you cannot on hard courts.
 

namelessone

Legend
I do not think there is anything wrong with Nadal's movement on Hardcourts. I just think he has very bad court positioning in general. It is not noticed on clay or grass because he can slide a lot on these surfaces but you cannot on hard courts.

He doesn't have bad court positioning, you don't have so many good HC results with bad court positioning. Sure, he can get into that passive mode, where he stands back but his strokes need a lot of winding up and the courts are fast, him standing on the baseline will only result in a lot of short balls for the opponent.

To me it's the way he steps on HC. On clay he not only slides very well but also moves great when he doesn't. On grass he's pretty much a natural. Like I said, his movement, whether forwards or lateral, on HC, seems a bit forced. I think Nadal needs a surface with some give and I think that's why he moves so great on natural surfaces.
 

ashitaka2010

Semi-Pro
As much as we go on and on about technical issues(and those are very important) the guy just doesn't like hardcourts. He can't get into a groove on them, they are bad for his health and he doesn't look like he enjoys playing on them to be honest. You get a sense of freedom about Rafa when he moves on clay or grass and same applies to his shots there, everything about HC Rafa is strained.

Nailed it.
 

2slik

Semi-Pro
He doesn't have bad court positioning, you don't have so many good HC results with bad court positioning. Sure, he can get into that passive mode, where he stands back but his strokes need a lot of winding up and the courts are fast, him standing on the baseline will only result in a lot of short balls for the opponent.

To me it's the way he steps on HC. On clay he not only slides very well but also moves great when he doesn't. On grass he's pretty much a natural. Like I said, his movement, whether forwards or lateral, on HC, seems a bit forced. I think Nadal needs a surface with some give and I think that's why he moves so great on natural surfaces.

It doesn't seem like he has bad court positioning because he is so quick on natural surfaces.

In the French Open Final of this year, he was pretty defensive for the whole match. He was not actually turning defence into offence, he was just getting everything back and waiting for an UE. If he did have good court positioning he would not have to rely on UE so regularly.
 

namelessone

Legend
It doesn't seem like he has bad court positioning because he is so quick on natural surfaces.

In the French Open Final of this year, he was pretty defensive for the whole match. He was not actually turning defence into offence, he was just getting everything back and waiting for an UE. If he did have good court positioning he would not have to rely on UE so regularly.

Again, answer me this, how can one guy with "bad court positioning" win AO, 5 MS HC and Olympics Gold?

The FO point is moot. Nadal moves different on different surfaces. Of course he will be more defensive on clay, he can stand way back and spin'em to death. In the FO final, Soderling was blasting but Nadal was either bringing most balls deep into soderling's throat(not landing them short) or killing soderling with the DTL fh on the run. And he also used his BH extremely well on that particular day to move sod around. He was basically playing chess with the swede at times. Robin was trying to blast off as usual but Nadal was giving him balls back at an angle or very deep and pouncing on anything short.

Nadal had just a couple less winner than soderling in RG but his amazing defensive displays frustrated the swede who made 45 UE's in three sets.
Soderling is the "winner or bust" type of player. That's why he can post high numbers there but also in UE.

Nadal had a different approach to him in WB and that was on grass(graphics showed that he was taking balls earlier than in RG, not from the backcourt). He was on the baseline most of the time and after a bad first set, straight up dominated soderling by making him run.

And just look what he did to murray. They were very close but Rafa's positioning on grass, coupled with his amazing shots, straight setter Murray, taking advantage of those few chances he had, the same chances he routinely misses on hardcourts because he always gets tight on this surface when the chips are down.
 

MichaelNadal

Bionic Poster
Nadal's game was AWFUL today. He had no plan, couldn't keep the ball in play and looked lost. THIS Nadal has no chance at the USO.
 

2slik

Semi-Pro
Again, answer me this, how can one guy with "bad court positioning" win AO, 5 MS HC and Olympics Gold?

The FO point is moot. Nadal moves different on different surfaces. Of course he will be more defensive on clay, he can stand way back and spin'em to death. In the FO final, Soderling was blasting but Nadal was either bringing most balls deep into soderling's throat(not landing them short) or killing soderling with the DTL fh on the run. And he also used his BH extremely well on that particular day to move sod around. He was basically playing chess with the swede at times. Robin was trying to blast off as usual but Nadal was giving him balls back at an angle or very deep and pouncing on anything short.

Nadal had just a couple less winner than soderling in RG but his amazing defensive displays frustrated the swede who made 45 UE's in three sets.
Soderling is the "winner or bust" type of player. That's why he can post high numbers there but also in UE.

Nadal had a different approach to him in WB and that was on grass(graphics showed that he was taking balls earlier than in RG, not from the backcourt). He was on the baseline most of the time and after a bad first set, straight up dominated soderling by making him run.

And just look what he did to murray. They were very close but Rafa's positioning on grass, coupled with his amazing shots, straight setter Murray, taking advantage of those few chances he had, the same chances he routinely misses on hardcourts because he always gets tight on this surface when the chips are down.

It is speed though which is reason. His court positioning is really not good, even on clay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tc_u_K1L1M
 

namelessone

Legend
Nadal's game was AWFUL today. He had no plan, couldn't keep the ball in play and looked lost. THIS Nadal has no chance at the USO.

One thing I don't understand about Nadal is why he doesn't just go all out from a certain stage onwards. OK, you are in QF/SF. F**k it, play reckless, even if you get breadsticked or bageled. I mean seriously, how much more can you slice on your BH. Just hit everything hard(we know Nadal can do it), with a lot less spin and hope for the best. Nadal has reached at least SF in 6 out of the last 7 HC Master Series but was hopeless in all of those SF because he chose to be passive when he had openings(and God knows he had a lot of those at times). Besides tehnical issues, that's his main problem, he gets too passive on these courts. Murray suffers from the same problem(but not just on HC) but Murray has the weapons to back up his game. Rafa needs flatter strokes and a decent serve. And even so, with what he has, he has chances but he gets passive on them.

He needs to change his mentality for HC. I don't like that everytime I see him on HC he seems to be going through the motions instead of trying to perfect pieces of his game, to improve, like I see on clay and grass where he gets better as the tourney goes on. On HC he stays about the same, gets marginally better but gets beat in SF by those guys with great HC games.
 

Netspirit

Hall of Fame
^ He wasn't THAT bad, actually. The match was competitive and ended mostly because of a double-fault on a break point.

He just blacked out a few times during important points, was apparently lacking confidence.

His BH was ***** by Bag's shots, to the point where he started to slice them back often (sounds familiar, heh?). Still, he could have won the third set, he basically gave it away.
 

MichaelNadal

Bionic Poster
One thing I don't understand about Nadal is why he doesn't just go all out from a certain stage onwards. OK, you are in QF/SF. F**k it, play reckless, even if you get breadsticked or bageled. I mean seriously, how much more can you slice on your BH. Just hit everything hard(we know Nadal can do it), with a lot less spin and hope for the best. Nadal has reached at least SF in 6 out of the last 7 HC Master Series but was hopeless in all of those SF because he chose to be passive when he had openings(and God knows he had a lot of those at times). Besides tehnical issues, that's his main problem, he gets too passive on these courts. Murray suffers from the same problem(but not just on HC) but Murray has the weapons to back up his game. Rafa needs flatter strokes and a decent serve. And even so, with what he has, he has chances but he gets passive on them.

He needs to change his mentality for HC. I don't like that everytime I see him on HC he seems to be going through the motions instead of trying to perfect pieces of his game, to improve, like I see on clay and grass where he gets better as the tourney goes on. On HC he stays about the same, gets marginally better but gets beat in SF by those guys with great HC games.

I don't get it either. He never, ever looks dominant on HC. It's like he is scared as soon as the first ball is struck.
 

namelessone

Legend
It is speed though which is reason. His court positioning is really not good, even on clay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tc_u_K1L1M

How do you define court positioning?

On clay you should stand further back and try to close out angled balls by sliding into your shots. The clip you just showed me doesn't prove your point, quite the contrary. On grass, you need to take balls earlier and Nadal steps up and takes them from near the baseline. And he can't really slide on grass, now can he?

Everybody is studying Nadal's movement on clay and grass and many people have said that he moves very good on HC as well. He must be a terrific mover if he does not know where and how to stand on court, for specific situations.:)
 

abmk

Bionic Poster
hmmm ... not exactly ... you still have some more splaining to do to connect up the dots ;)

PAgony wrote:
1. "DP [delPotro] is an excellent player . . . but as far as results go, Nadal is BY FAR the superior HC player."
That's just as true a statement as:
2. Nadal is an excellent player . . . but as far as results go, Federer is BY FAR the superior clay court player.

My objection to Mustard's explanation that it was about H2H between the two players:
3. How can Player X be called "by far superior" to Player Y on HC, when Player Y actually has a winning record over Player X on HC ... especially in recent times such as 2009 ... and especially too when Player X turned professional 4 years PRIOR to Player Y????

To apply this in analyzing #2 above, Nadal = Player Y (as is delPotro in PAgony's statement), and Federer is Player X (as is Nadal in PAgony's statement [#1]). Putting the variables into their appropriate blanks, the question parallel to my #3 would be:

4. How can Federer be called "BY FAR superior" to Nadal on clay, when Nadal actually has a winning record over Federer on clay courts?

Your example about Davydenko does not answer my question #3 above or its paralell #4 .... YET ... maybe it will if you splain it further, show the connections to my original question (#3) as I have done.

Bottom Line:
Nadal cannot be truthfully stated to be "BY FAR superior" to delPotro on HC despite their H2H on HC any more than Federer can truthfully be stated to be "BY FAR superior" to Nadal on clay despite their H2H on clay.

jeez,

2 does not follow from 1 because nadal has accomplished far more than federer on clay AND has a winning H2H ( who/what on earth gave you the idea that federer has accomplished more than nadal on clay ? :shock:)

1 is true has nadal has accomplished more than del potro on hard courts, but he has a losing H2H ( I don't agree with "by far" but yeah, nadal's the superior HC player )

1 is similar to davydenko-nadal as nadal has accomplished more on hard courts, but still has a losing H2H

If their HC accomplishments were very close ( either nadal-del potro or nadal-davydenko ), then the H2H could come in as a tie-breaker ...

The accomplishments matter the most
 

OddJack

G.O.A.T.
One thing I don't understand about Nadal is why he doesn't just go all out from a certain stage onwards. OK, you are in QF/SF. F**k it, play reckless, even if you get breadsticked or bageled. I mean seriously, how much more can you slice on your BH. Just hit everything hard(we know Nadal can do it), with a lot less spin and hope for the best. Nadal has reached at least SF in 6 out of the last 7 HC Master Series but was hopeless in all of those SF because he chose to be passive when he had openings(and God knows he had a lot of those at times). Besides tehnical issues, that's his main problem, he gets too passive on these courts. Murray suffers from the same problem(but not just on HC) but Murray has the weapons to back up his game. Rafa needs flatter strokes and a decent serve. And even so, with what he has, he has chances but he gets passive on them.

He needs to change his mentality for HC. I don't like that everytime I see him on HC he seems to be going through the motions instead of trying to perfect pieces of his game, to improve, like I see on clay and grass where he gets better as the tourney goes on. On HC he stays about the same, gets marginally better but gets beat in SF by those guys with great HC games.

We know Nadal can do it

No we dont, not on fast hard courts.

Rafa needs flatter strokes and a decent serve

Yeah, since when? Few years? How about magically getting some, one week before the USO?

On HC he stays about the same, gets marginally better but gets beat in SF by those guys with great HC games.

Well that has had it's virtues too. One is his ****ing H2H against Rodge. If he was able to go deeper many goofs on these boards would have a lot less to boast about.
 

namelessone

Legend
I don't get it either. He never, ever looks dominant on HC. It's like he is scared as soon as the first ball is struck.

As I have said, it is a mental thing. He has not won a tourney on HC since IW 09'. He squandered so many good chances on this surface that it got to him(had his chances in AO with Murray,Davy in Doha,in IW with ljuba, in Miami with Roddick, again with Murray in Toronto)not to mention him knowing that the other guys have better weapons for this surface(what can you do if a guy like roddick is on on his serve or if delpo has a terrific day with the fh). Besides having his main weapons squashed by the surface, Rafa is extremely vulnerable on serve and that makes him nervous as well, the surface does not take his spinny serves well.

All these things make him tentative and he gets agitated. There is a calm about Nadal on clay and grass on big points, on HC he is like "I gotta get this one or I'm toast" and it shows. This makes him vulnerable within but also to the outside world. Many players have learned that if they bash on Nadal's BH they will get a slice and on HC that is money if it is not a good slice.

Rafa on HC is like a guy stripped of his weapons, he can survive, but not thrive.

This may be extrapolating a bit, but I think that subconciously Nadal has pretty much given up on HC. He fights to go deep in order to maintain his ranking but I think he knows that he will never be a very good HC player.

He is a natural surface guy. Look how battered he was at WTF last year(0-6 in sets) then came back on clay and pummeled Berdych in DC final. He was vulnerable too in the first part of 2010 on HC but he cleaned up on clay and grass.
 

abmk

Bionic Poster
On HC he stays about the same, gets marginally better but gets beat in SF by those guys with great HC games.

Well that has had it's virtues too. One is his ****ing H2H against Rodge. If he was able to go deeper many goofs on these boards would have a lot less to boast about.

absolutely !!
 

namelessone

Legend
We know Nadal can do it

1.No we dont, not on fast hard courts.

Rafa needs flatter strokes and a decent serve

2.Yeah, since when? Few years? How about magically getting some, one week before the USO?

On HC he stays about the same, gets marginally better but gets beat in SF by those guys with great HC games.

3.Well that has had it's virtues too. One is his ****ing H2H against Rodge. If he was able to go deeper many goofs on these boards would have a lot less to boast about.

1. Look up Nadal uber forehands, if that's not hard hitting I don't know what is.

2. I was talking for HC in general, not USO 2010.

3. You and other Fed fans are huge hypocrites(not that ********* don't have their own). You ***** about Nadal fans bringing on the h2h and say it isn't important(I agree with this)and yet you are the ones that wish it to be more even out. If it's not important, why do you want it evened out? If Roger has a 20-7 h2h and 20 slams at the end of the day would that h2h seriously bother you?
Well, pick one, you can't have them both: does that h2h bother you or not?
Anytime you bring out h2h, you feed into the ego of those that believe it matters.

You and others forget that these guys can only met in FINALS most of the time. The reason why they haven't met in HC finals a lot is because Rafa isn't top 2 as far as HC is concerned,maybe not even top5. But he is a solid QF/SF guy. If one of them was way lower down they would have met far more often.
 

TheTruth

G.O.A.T.
We know Nadal can do it

No we dont, not on fast hard courts.

Rafa needs flatter strokes and a decent serve

Yeah, since when? Few years? How about magically getting some, one week before the USO?

On HC he stays about the same, gets marginally better but gets beat in SF by those guys with great HC games.

Well that has had it's virtues too. One is his ****ing H2H against Rodge. If he was able to go deeper many goofs on these boards would have a lot less to boast about.

But everyone knows Rodge is #2 on clay. What is excuse is there for the h2h being so lopsided? That doesn't make sense.

If they met on hardcourts, it appears the h2h could actually be worse. They're 4-5 on hardcourts so it's illogical to assume Fed would win all of their hardcourt matches. He has a slim margin there and on grass.

Clay is his best chance to even out the h2h since they meet there the most. Then, when you consider that Fed grew up on the clay and beats everyone else on the clay, how do people justify the h2h as somehow being unfair?

The only way I would understand that logic is if Fed had a wider margin of victory on hard or grass, but he doesn't. It's a one win difference in an odd numbered h2h. If Nadal wins their next hc or grass meeting, they're even, so how is Roger disadvantaged?

I heard the commentators saying that this evening and was blown away by how inane that argument is. #1 and #2 on a surface should not result in such a bad h2h.
 

abmk

Bionic Poster
3. You and other Fed fans are huge hypocrites(not that ********* don't have their own). You ***** about Nadal fans bringing on the h2h and say it isn't important(I agree with this)and yet you are the ones that wish it to be more even out. If it's not important, why do you want it evened out? If Roger has a 20-7 h2h and 20 slams at the end of the day would that h2h seriously bother you?
Well, pick one, you can't have them both: does that h2h bother you or not?
Anytime you bring out h2h, you feed into the ego of those that believe it matters.

You and others forget that these guys can only met in FINALS most of the time. The reason why they haven't met in HC finals a lot is because Rafa isn't top 2 as far as HC is concerned,maybe not even top5. But he is a solid QF/SF guy. If one of them was way lower down they would have met far more often.

The reason why the surfaces issue is brought out is because half of the posts of the *********s are about the H2H !

H2H matters , but its not as important as it is made out to be and frankly there should be enough matches on all surfaces and not much skew ( apart from other factors ) for it to be an important factor ...When one sees it repeated infinitely , naturally one responds at one time or the other ...
 
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CMM

Legend
I don't think Rafa played that bad in this match, compared to the previous two.
He made a lot of errors, but he also hit a lot of forehand winners and his backhand started to look better after the first set.
In a best of 5 match he has more chances, I think. I also want to believe that he didn't give his all in these two tournaments.
With a good draw, I think he's got chances at the US Open (although I don't think he's the favourite).
He reached the semifinals playing bad last year, so if he can raise his game a little, serve a little bit better, hit the backhand better and be more aggressive, I think he can "bully" his way to that title.
 
When I read that he lost I knew that *******s would go on about "avoiding Roger on fast HC". Look, he lost in three, it's not like he wasn't trying, Baggie was just better. Not to mention that he fought hard against Benneteau too, does that look like a guy that is tanking?
What these people keep missing time and time again is that Fedal have been nr.1 and 2 since 05' and they usually can meet only in FINALS. This was one of the very few times when they could have met in semifinals.

Nadal fans were the ones playing the tank card. Nadal fans were the ones giddy at the possibility of playing Fed, because they thought for some odd reason that Rafa would be able to beat Fed on a fast HC, even though he's proven in the past that he cannot. Nadal fans were the ones already exclaiming '15-7 and even on HC'. Check earlier in the thread, I'm not lying. Even some of the balanced Nadal fans like Mustard were playing that game. Please don't make everything so one sided.
 
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