Match Stats/Report - Nadal vs Djokovic, Wimbledon semi-final, 2007

Waspsting

Hall of Fame
Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic 3-6, 6-1, 4-1 retired in the Wimbledon semi-final, 2007 on grass

Nadal would go onto lose the final to Roger Federer for second year in a row. This was Djokovic’s first semi-final showing a the event. Nadal had recently won the French Open, beating Djokovic en route to the title. The two would go onto contest the 2011 final, with Djokovic winning

Nadal won 71 points, Djokovic 61

Serve Stats
Nadal...
- 1st serve percentage (32/55) 58%
- 1st serve points won (25/32) 78%
- 2nd serve points won (13/23) 57%
- Ace 4
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (21/55) 38%

Djokovic...
- 1st serve percentage (49/77) 64%
- 1st serve points won (32/49) 65%
- 2nd serve points won (12/28) 43%
- Ace 7
- Double Faults 2
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (25/77) 32%

Serve Pattern
Nadal served...
- to FH 35%
- to BH 64%
- to Body 2%

Djokovic served...
- to FH 33%
- to BH 56%
- to Body 11%

Return Stats
Nadal made...
- 50 (20 FH, 30 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 18 Errors, comprising...
- 8 Unforced (5 FH, 3 BH)
- 10 Forced (3 FH, 7 BH)
- Return Rate (50/75) 67%

Djokovic made...
- 34 (12 FH, 22 BH), including 3 runaround FHs & 1 return-approach
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 17 Errors, comprising...
- 8 Unforced (3 FH, 5 BH)
- 9 Forced (4 FH, 5 BH)
- Return Rate (34/55) 62%

Break Points
Nadal 4/10 (6 games)
Djokovic 1/2 (1 game)

Winners (including returns, excluding aces)
Nadal 15 (8 FH, 2 BH, 2 FHV, 1 FH1/2V, 1 BHV, 1 OH)
Djokovic 13 (5 FH, 4 BH, 2 FHV, 1 BHV, 1 OH)

Nadal's FHs - 2 dtl, 3 inside-out, 1 inside-in at net, 2 drop shots
- BHs - 1 cc, 1 longline pass at net

- 1 from a serve-volley point, a first volley BHV

- the FH1/2V was a non-net point (but played like a 'volley' half-volley not a groundstroke)

Djokovic's FHs - 1 cc, 1 dtl/inside-out, 2 inside-out (1 return), 1 inside-in
- BHs - 1 cc, 1 dtl, 2 drop shots (1 at net)

- 1 from a serve-volley point, a second volley OH

Errors (excluding returns and serves)
Nadal 23
- 12 Unforced (7 FH, 5 BH)
- 11 Forced (7 FH, 3 BH, 1 FHV)... with 1 BH running-down-drop-shot at net
Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 46.7

Djokovic 33
- 29 Unforced (16 FH, 11 BH, 2 BHV)
- 4 Forced (2 FH, 2 BH)
Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 46.9

(Note 1: all half-volleys refer to such shots played at net. Half -volleys played from other parts of the court are included within relevant groundstroke counts)

(Note 2: the Unforced Error Forcefulness Index is an indicator of how aggressive the average UE was. The numbers presented are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)

Net Points & Serve-Volley
Nadal was...
- 6/10 (60%) at net, including...
- 1/1 serve-volleying, a 1st serve
---
- 0/1 forced back

Djokovic was...
- 9/12 (75%) at net, including...
- 2/2 serve-volleying, both 1st serves
---
- 1/1 return-approaching

Match Report
Strange match, especially in hindsight. Novak Djokovic - the wolf, the dog-on-a-bone, the toughest of customers - seems to lose heart as his play gets sloppy, and quits. And the court is different from recent Wimbledon ones, with what-used-to-be normal, slippery, low bounce

Pretty good serve from Djokovic, a decent one from Nadal
Both players take returns early. Again, in hindsight, its odd to see Nadal do so. He’s virtually playing pick-up returns. Both struggle to deal with the skiddy bounce on the return and are rushed by pace too
Court action is baseline stuff. Solid and good to start. And Djoko getting sloppy after that and remaining so to the premature end

He’s mildly showing signs of favouring a leg around middle/late second set. And footwork gets more imprecise (its not a paradigm of surety before that either), a little lazy. It looks more like trying to show he’s struggling than anything so serious that one couldn’t help but reveal it (he’s never been one to go out of his way to hide physical issues)

His movements continue in that vein, and he’s still sloppy as Nadal races away to lead. 1-4 down in third set, talks to a trainer at change-over and calls it an afternoon
Following year, the recently crowned Australian Open champion Djoko would quit at Monte Carlo semis with a sore throat. He’d win Rome soon after

There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with Djokovic, if anything. Certainly, nothing warranting retiring from the match. When a player suddenly starts showing signs of having physical issues soon after starting to play sloppy, one wonders which came first - the supposed physical issues leading to sloppy play? Or the other way around? And when said physical issues don’t seem to be amputation cases, one can’t help but wonder how much of it is real and how much imaginary. He seems a lot healthier hear than he did even at the start of the 2023 Cincy final with Carlos Alcaraz, which he won in 3 long sets

All that aside, its shaping up to be a good match before Djoko gets sloppy. And Nadal with a fine 15 winners, 12 UEs showing, though Djoko playing poorly is bigger factor (he’s got 29 UEs) in match turning Nadal’s way for good

The court plays very differently from recent Wimbledons, and brings home how much courts have changed there over the years. Its doubtful Wimbledon champions for this period would be commenting adversely about hard court events being too fast the way recent champions have (justifiably - as in, they seem to be considerably quicker than Wimby, which isn’t saying much anymore). Balls skim through low, and knee height bounce is normal

Unreturned serves - Nadal 38%, Djoko 32%


Comparing to Wimby finals and 1 semi in the ongoing decade -
- ‘24 Alcaraz 28%, Djokovic 25%
- ‘23 Alcaraz 27%, Djokovic 23%
- ‘23 Djoko 29%, Sinner 24%
- ‘22 Djoko 35%, Kyrgios 42%
- ‘21 Djoko 30%, Berrettini 31%

The only match with higher rates is the ‘22 final, featuring Nick Kyrgios, a top-drawer server well beyond everyone else on show, and also a particularly early taking returner, prone to having low return rates

Djokovic himself has become a more accurate server recently than he was in ‘07, and Nadal’s serve is above average at best in this match. Berrettini and Sinner are significantly bigger servers (especially the former) than the serve showings off both players in this ‘07 match

Nadal’s 38% isn’t augmented by Djoko’s ‘injury’. Whatever trouble he’s having is barely perceptible in rallies, let alone on the return. Mentally not being all there probably has a hand in it. Suffice to say, his consistency on return is not good

Ace’d - Nadal 7, Djoko 4
Return FEs - Nadal 10, Djoko 9
Return UEs - both 8

Relatively high UEs on return for both players. 5/8 UE for both players are against first serves. Relatively tough for UEs, standard slightly wide or in swing zone first serves of decent pace. If not too easy, kinds of serves returner would be disappointed to miss

Trade off of good depth on returns by both players, Djoko more so. As stronger server, he’s returned worse to trail freebies by 6%
 

Waspsting

Hall of Fame
Play - Baseline
Winners - Nadal 15, Djoko 13
Errors forced - Nadal 4, Djoko 11
UEs - Nadal 12, Djoko 29

Djoko’s 29 UEs dominating things - comfily more than both players aggressively ended points and Nadal’s UEs. That’s the sloppiness, and discredit to him, not credit to Nadal for being especially secure

Djoko actually leading aggressively ended points 24-19, though trailing winners. High errors forced to winners is generally reflects a sounder approach to the game than Nadal’s very winner heavy yield of aggressively ended points. Nadal is very quick in defence, which would encourage Djoko to go closer to lines or/and hit harder to end points. Quick as Nadal is, he doesn’t convert would-be winners to FEs and that’s not the reason for Djoko’s sound balance of winners to errors forced. Its just Djoko’s way - and it’s a good one

Djoko’s no defensive slouch himself, especially early on. Nadal attacks balls early and on this skimming court, not-too wide balls hit well are potentially error forcing. Djoko upto not making errors in that situation. He can’t quite neutralize such shots though, and Nadal keeps on the offence to keep hitting wide, strong shots until finishing with winner

Above sounds wonderful from Djoko’s point of view; forcing Nadal to hit winners because nothing less will do. And is amusingly deceptive. No need for Nadal to be strained when Djoko’s so generous with the UEs

UE breakdown -
- neutral - Nadal 6, Djoko 14
- attacking - Nadal 4, Djoko 10
- winner attempts - Nadal 2, Djoko 5

… and winners-UEs by shot (arranged in descending order of winners)
- Nadal FH 8-7
- Djoko FH 5-16
- Djoko BH 4-11
- Nadal BH 2-5

Nadal’s FH in its often occupied star role. He looks to dictate with it. Not a lot of stationary cc rallies, more moving Djoko around instead and quick to seize upto attacking. Not too much backing away either and generally moving in to play FHs

3 winners inside-out, 2 dtl points to a stable, attacking game from him. Better than inside-out heavy one that he tends to have, which hints at lots of back-away (which tends to bring with it other problems)

Not backing away too much leaves BH to have its fair share of action. Strong stable stuff on that front, playing firmly cc, not giving up weak balls. Match high FH winners, match low BH UEs is a good formula for winning

BH is better for Djoko than FH.
Powerful cc and good at attacking dtl with it. Plays a few drop shots too - has a couple winners, forces an error and misses about as many as he wins points with it (which is better than he usually does playing drop shots against Nadal)

Targets Nadal’s FH corner, both with back-away FH inside-outs and big BH cc’s and Nadal’s got match high 7 FH FEs. To be clear, ‘not backing away too much’ by Nadal doesn’t mean he stays in center of court and he does lean over looking for FHs, thus leaving FH corner vulnerable. Quick as he is, he can’t defend the powerful shots there

And the sloppiness of 29 UEs by Djoko. Sloppiness here defined as giving up errors without much probing, usually early in rallies. The handicap he has on neutrals is due to it, not Nadal being impenetrable wall. FH is chief offender on the high attacking UE yield. If Nadal’s defence has a hand in encouraging it, its still more a blackmark on Djoko

Even in winning first set, Djoko’s a bit lazy with his footwork and not over the ball occasionally. It gets worse as match wears on (never to extent of looking like its due to injury). Looseness off the ground isn’t limited to his ‘injury’ phase. Nadal’s effort and movement are immaculate and he’s quick

Net points - Nadal 6/10, Djoko 9/12

Not a big part of the match and purely rallying to net, its Nadal 5/9, Djoko 6/9. Nadal’s doing dandily from baseline, so not much need to come in. Djoko isn’t but doesn’t look comfy at net, though with decent success. Probably wouldn’t do him good to come in more. It wouldn’t be easy to start with since action baseline rallies are fluent and lively, with Nadal dictating often as not and his volleying doesn’t promise long term success. He’s got couple UEs, Nadal’s only error is an FE

Match Progression
Bright 16 point game to get things started. Some good, early taken wide returns from Nadal and he has 3 break points. Djoko’s serve keeps him 1 step ahead. He’s got 3 aces in the game and scores with BH dtl leading to a volley winner, strikes another very nice, low drop volley that leads to a net-to-net BHV winner and eventually, holds with a third ball FH inside-out winner against a decent return

Then Djoko breaks to 15. Couple of winning FHs directed towards Nadal’s FH corner and couple of Nadal ground UEs do the trick

No more break points but good tennis for rest of set, with serve shot wielding considerable influence for both players. A soft, third ball BH drop shot winner by Djoko stands out. Generally, his droppers tend to be more mechanical than exquisite, even when successful. In time, he serves out to love, serve-volleying for first time and dispatching a second volleying smash winner so doing

He wins 2 more games rest of match, as Nadal wins 10
Play doesn’t turn on a dime. Playing dynamics remain as they were, with Djoko just missing a quite a lot, but games aren’t one sided

Though facing no more break points or even being taken to deuce, Nadal doesn’t have any love holds (he only had 1 in first set). And in being broken 4 times, Djoko reaches 30 minimum

Djoko's footwork deteriorates, but had been imprecise in first set also. He first shows signs of favouring a leg late in second set, when he drags his feet a little after losing a point. His returning falls away and Nadal has 14/33 or 42% unreturned serves after first set

Most of all, he gets sloppy. Off both wings and in most ways

Lovely FH1/2V winner from no-man’s land by Nadal in game 2, where he goes on to break after running down a drop shot. Djoko’s easing up on chasing by time he’s broken again for 1-5
Flurry of winners (5 in 6 points) between two players as Nadal serves out the set. Like Djoko set before, he wraps up with a serve-volley point, hitting a first BHV winner

Djoko escapes from 15-40 down to hold for 1-0 to start the third, but loses next 4 games. Brilliant running third ball FH dtl winner by Nadal is pick of rest of match
After getting broken for 1-4, Djoko talks to a trainer at change-over. Doesn’t seem to receive treatment and quits while behind

Summing up, pretty good showing from Nadal, who looks to get on attack and doesn’t overly back-away to look for FHs to do so. FH firing some and BH steadily strong. A good game

Story of match though is Djokovic’s, and what exactly that story is, only he knows for sure. Pretty good serve, usual solidly strong groundgame to back it up initially, though with some slack footwork. He gets sloppier with the ground errors as match goes on, exhibiting only minor signs physical discomfort, and quits when getting rolled over

If he’s in kind of agony that would force any man to quit, than he’s the toughest guy in the world to show so little of it. Or he quits when in a state most players would suck up and take in stride. Like a sore throat, for example

Stats for the final between Nadal and Roger Federer - Match Stats/Report - Federer vs Nadal, Wimbledon final 2007 | Talk Tennis
 

jl809

Legend
It looks more like trying to show he’s struggling
this triggered me so hard thinking about AO 15 lol

In retrospect I had no idea the grass was playing like this…. From memory, I don’t think there was much discussion of the surface in the 07 final itself so I’m guessing it slowed down to the “standard” mid 00s to mid 2010s grass by the time the match rolled around
 

One

Rookie
Djokovic played 3 incredibly long matches before this one, and had a blisters on his foot. Didnt espect from him to beat Nadal, but he won a set anyway. Strage that he needed 3 year to play another SF at Wimbledon.
 

RS

Bionic Poster
this triggered me so hard thinking about AO 15 lol

In retrospect I had no idea the grass was playing like this…. From memory, I don’t think there was much discussion of the surface in the 07 final itself so I’m guessing it slowed down to the “standard” mid 00s to mid 2010s grass by the time the match rolled around
:p
 

Waspsting

Hall of Fame
Djokovic played 3 incredibly long matches before this one, and had a blisters on his foot. Didnt espect from him to beat Nadal, but he won a set anyway. Strage that he needed 3 year to play another SF at Wimbledon.

How Djokovic's feet have survived what he puts them through with all that sliding is a mystery to me. I imagine players who slide about on hard courts wear very specifially designed shoes for this type of stuff

I wouldn't dare try sliding like this on a hard court for fear of turning over and breaking my ankle
I remember one year recently where he was forced to change his shoes at Wimby because the pair he was wearing had specially designed dimples along the sides to help him slide better on the grass

Strage that he needed 3 year to play another SF at Wimbledon.

I don't think he liked grass very much. Not many non-serve bots do, simply because no one grows up playing on it
Coming to like it because you keep winning is different from what I'm getting at, which is just feeling good playing on the surface

I remember he used to say "its not my favourite surface", as late as mid-late 2010s. Don't remember last time I heard him say that, but wouldn't be surprised if it were all the way up to 2018 or 2019 when he was 4-5 time Wimby champion

With just 3 surfaces around, decoding common statements about surface preferances is easy -

"its my favourite surface" - means its favourite surface
"its one of my favourite surfaces" - means its second favourite surface
"its not my favourite surface" - means its third and last
 

nolefam_2024

Bionic Poster
How Djokovic's feet have survived what he puts them through with all that sliding is a mystery to me. I imagine players who slide about on hard courts wear very specifially designed shoes for this type of stuff

I wouldn't dare try sliding like this on a hard court for fear of turning over and breaking my ankle
I remember one year recently where he was forced to change his shoes at Wimby because the pair he was wearing had specially designed dimples along the sides to help him slide better on the grass



I don't think he liked grass very much. Not many non-serve bots do, simply because no one grows up playing on it
Coming to like it because you keep winning is different from what I'm getting at, which is just feeling good playing on the surface

I remember he used to say "its not my favourite surface", as late as mid-late 2010s. Don't remember last time I heard him say that, but wouldn't be surprised if it were all the way up to 2018 or 2019 when he was 4-5 time Wimby champion

With just 3 surfaces around, decoding common statements about surface preferances is easy -

"its my favourite surface" - means its favourite surface
"its one of my favourite surfaces" - means its second favourite surface
"its not my favourite surface" - means its third and last
That's right. Djokovic shoes are about 210 gram and Murray's over 600 I heard. Murray tried Nole's shoes and sliding but he couldn't get stability.
 
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