How many more times in a row could Nadal lose to Djokovic before he decides to retire

[Rozroz]

the funny thing will be that the FO courts will turn out to be faster than AO court
the lack of aces on AO really look like FO.
i wonder how Nadal will deal with THAT.

 

[celoft]

Nadal makes way to much money to retire because he has not been able to beat Djokovic recently. trust me he wont be retiring anytime soon LOL

He cares too much about money now to retire. Mercenary?

I suppose Borg wasn't a mercenary...

 

[ViscaB]

Rafa will retire once Fed does. From that point he will have no more easy finals or semi-finals.

 

[netlets]

I wonder who he's gonna be boring as hell if it's someone on the tour now.

Delpo? He's bigger and stronger...time will tell.

 

[Crisstti]

Lol. Of course I am a fan of his. I wouldn't give a sh*t less about how he's been playing for the past year if I wasn't. I really do see some positive signs for Nadal. I just hope he can continue them and improve so he can get this Magneto monkey off his back. If he can stick to an aggressive style and stop the 15 feet behind the baseline crap I think he can do it,but if he stays passive and defensive there is absolutely no hope at all for him.

I know, I actually meant it when I said I knew you were a fan

Agree with you as well.

 

[Towser83]

Dumba** thread. It took Cvac 6 hours to beat Nadal on Nadal's worst surface and Cvac's best,and people are talking about Nadal retiring because of it? Are you people for real? This match could have gone either way,and it was the first time in the past year that Nadal actually changed things up and fought his a** off out there. I think it was a step in the right direction for him even though he lost.

Also,winning this slam was not the walk in the park for Magneto this year as it was last year. It seems to me that players are starting to figure out a game plan against him,and that things won't be so easy for him in the future. It happens to every player when they get to the top and eventually it will happen to Possum as well.

And love the new sig,MichaelNadal.

Lol this coming from clarky who has practically been calling for nadal to retire for the last year.

Anyway, nadal won't retire, he aint borg. Nor is he finished.

 

[Crisstti]

Honestly speaking, I felt a bad for Rafa. He fought so hard and so valiantly throughout the match despite being outclassed from the tennis perspective. He's most definitely got the biggest heart I've ever seen in any sporting athlete.

That alone would be enough to make me a fan of his. I'm glad he's feeling positive after what happened.

The real pity, IMO, is that he surely has the talent to be a better. more aggressive player. But for whatever reason he is either not been instructed properly OR is loathe to implement the correct tactics. Maybe things have become so ingrained that it's impossible to ameliorate the weaknesses at this time in his career. Still I find it inexcusable on how he seems to lose certain parts of his game. His serve is worse than it has every been anytime in 2010, and I'm not talking about the UsOpen 2010 at all. He serves at 75 mph second serve, and expects to beat Djokovic?

I agree about the second serve. He doesn't need to do more against other players with it, but he needs against Novak, so he's just going to have to take more risks with it. The chances he has of winning points on his second serve (at least serving that slow) are ridiculously low. Though it does seem to work better when he doesn't serve near the T, but takes Novak out with it.

Nadal has no problems BEING aggressive, he has major problems with STAYING aggressive.

It is NOT his natural game. His game is to defend until he gets a opening and lets it rip. With Djokovic you have to create openings by hitting shots with pace into corners, maybe even adding a dropshot or two when he is far behind.

Rafa has to go out of his comfort zone and stay there constantly to beat Djokovic. Very hard to do. It's like asking Federer to hit to Nadal's BH all day long(in the manner of the first set in their SF) to get openings for his fh.

It's clearly what he's trying to do though. Rafa plays more aggressively when he's feeling confident, when he's winning, so it's hard for him to do it consistently now as things are. He's trying to force himself to do it now. It's working to some degree, but as you say he has troubles keeping it up. Let's see how he does with practice at it. I say let's give him some time.

 

[dafinch]

Excellent post. One of the best I've read in this forum. Thanks for posting.

Time was when you had to play a different style against different opponents on surfaces with varying speed through the year.

These days, with similar speed courts and 1 style of tennis, whoever moves better and hits better from back wins. Whoever is a more superior athlete and can hit the ball harder with more accuracy wins. That's it. That's the edge that top 4 have over the rest of the ATP. Nadal was an evolution over Fed in this aspect, and now Nole is an evolution over Nadal.

At some point, there will be a new player who will OUT-NOLE, Nole. And then he will reign. Yawn...

I read Jack Kramer's excellent book "The Game" a long time ago, and he mentioned that if Player A is 10% better than Player B, and starts beating him, he will likely win more than, say, 55% of the matches because B will likely try to do things he isn't capable of doing, and lose even more readily. There is no aspect of tennis right now where one can definitively say that Nadal is better than Nole, and I include groundstrokes on that list. The fact that Nadal couldn't out duel Nole from the baseline, on clay, probably contributed to the two straight set losses to him there-the only such losses in the 7 match streak. If he couldn't beat Nole at the AO, where he had a significant rest edge (in ease of semifinal victory, which was Nole's fault for not dispatching Murray more quickly, and in rest days, because of the AO's stupid policy of holding the semifinals on different days), he is probably not gonna beat him any time soon.

 

[Hood_Man]

Nadal might be in the same position with Djokovic that Federer is in with Nadal, in that his best chance to win would be for his "Bogeyman" to get knocked out early.

Feds loss at the 09 Oz Open was his 5th loss to Nadal in a row, and the 3rd time he'd lost to Nadal in a Grand Slam final in as many matches.

Then Nadals knees blew up and Federer scored a win against him on clay, won the French, won Wimbledon, regained his #1 ranking, won Cincinatti, and won the Oz Open the following year.

It's not all about one player. Who else is really better than Nadal right now? Murray could beat him anywhere I feel (yes, even on clay), but doesn't, and Federer I feel can't keep the intensity going in the longer matches anymore.

I'm not sure I can see Nadal necessarily dominating again in the absence of Djokovic, but I can see him getting some big wins, and that will be enough to keep Rafa going.

Even if he loses the French this year, he'll still have a chance next year.

Nadal will retire when he no longer enjoys it. Sure he whines sometimes, but surely not everyone with a great job loves it all the time? I think he just speaks his mind a bit more these days in press conferences.

One reason why I think the loss to Djokovic in Australia won't hurt as much as we might think it did, is the response he got from the crowd. They loved him! They genuinely loved him, he could have disappeared in that fourth set but he didn't, he forced a tiebreak and nearly won the 5th. And he won the battle of the speeches at the end

Novaks a funny guy, but Nadal's "Good Morning" got the biggest laugh.

 

[IvanisevicServe]

Nadal might be in the same position with Djokovic that Federer is in with Nadal, in that his best chance to win would be for his "Bogeyman" to get knocked out early.

Feds loss at the 09 Oz Open was his 5th loss to Nadal in a row, and the 3rd time he'd lost to Nadal in a Grand Slam final in as many matches.

Then Nadals knees blew up and Federer scored a win against him on clay, won the French, won Wimbledon, regained his #1 ranking, won Cincinatti, and won the Oz Open the following year.

It's not all about one player. Who else is really better than Nadal right now? Murray could beat him anywhere I feel (yes, even on clay), but doesn't, and Federer I feel can't keep the intensity going in the longer matches anymore.

I'm not sure I can see Nadal necessarily dominating again in the absence of Djokovic, but I can see him getting some big wins, and that will be enough to keep Rafa going.

Even if he loses the French this year, he'll still have a chance next year.

Nadal will retire when he no longer enjoys it. Sure he whines sometimes, but surely not everyone with a great job loves it all the time? I think he just speaks his mind a bit more these days in press conferences.

One reason why I think the loss to Djokovic in Australia won't hurt as much as we might think it did, is the response he got from the crowd. They loved him! They genuinely loved him, he could have disappeared in that fourth set but he didn't, he forced a tiebreak and nearly won the 5th. And he won the battle of the speeches at the end

Novaks a funny guy, but Nadal's "Good Morning" got the biggest laugh.

I think that's his best shot as well. Djokovic is going to get hurt playing this many matches with this style of play. Heck, he didn't even make it all through last year in one piece.

 

[Crisstti]

Nadal might be in the same position with Djokovic that Federer is in with Nadal, in that his best chance to win would be for his "Bogeyman" to get knocked out early.

Feds loss at the 09 Oz Open was his 5th loss to Nadal in a row, and the 3rd time he'd lost to Nadal in a Grand Slam final in as many matches.

Then Nadals knees blew up and Federer scored a win against him on clay, won the French, won Wimbledon, regained his #1 ranking, won Cincinatti, and won the Oz Open the following year.

It's not all about one player. Who else is really better than Nadal right now? Murray could beat him anywhere I feel (yes, even on clay), but doesn't, and Federer I feel can't keep the intensity going in the longer matches anymore.

I'm not sure I can see Nadal necessarily dominating again in the absence of Djokovic, but I can see him getting some big wins, and that will be enough to keep Rafa going.

Even if he loses the French this year, he'll still have a chance next year.

Nadal will retire when he no longer enjoys it. Sure he whines sometimes, but surely not everyone with a great job loves it all the time? I think he just speaks his mind a bit more these days in press conferences.

One reason why I think the loss to Djokovic in Australia won't hurt as much as we might think it did, is the response he got from the crowd. They loved him! They genuinely loved him, he could have disappeared in that fourth set but he didn't, he forced a tiebreak and nearly won the 5th. And he won the battle of the speeches at the end

Novaks a funny guy, but Nadal's "Good Morning" got the biggest laugh.

Nadal is actually very funny. He always makes journalists laugh at press conferences, and in interviews he's quite funny as well. In a different way than Novak, no doubt.

Good post, BTW.