Matches, where players did (almost) nothing wrong, but lost?

a10best said:
Fed's 13-12 loss to Djokovic at Wimbledon.
Fed beat him in 95% of stats. after the match, Novak is quoted calling that win lucky.
The karma gods didn't forget and ripped away a Wimb win from Novak when Carlos got lucky in the 2nd set TB.
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nah. Fed played 3 bad 3 TBs in WImbledon 2019, blowing 2 of them.
approach shot at 40-15 wasn't good.
 
Wimbledon 2009 stands out for us Roddick fans but I've also gotta toss in his loss to Pim Pim in the 2004 US Open QF - him winning 152 points to Johansson's 128 and still losing in five is a jaw-dropper on paper. Johansson blinked more, Roddick blinked at the wrong times.
 
FD3S said:
Wimbledon 2009 stands out for us Roddick fans but I've also gotta toss in his loss to Pim Pim in the 2004 US Open QF - him winning 152 points to Johansson's 128 and still losing in five is a jaw-dropper on paper. Johansson blinked more, Roddick blinked at the wrong times.
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Roddick choked the second set away with a very easy volley, and he got outaced badly by Fed which should never happen if he wanted to win.
 
EddieChang said:
Roddick choked the second set away with a very easy volley, and he got outaced badly by Fed which should never happen if he wanted to win.
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That volley actually wasn't as straightforward as it came off - it was a bit of an awkward mishit from Federer that could have gone either way and Roddick had to choose very quickly whether or not to make a play. A tried and true net guy would have had a far easier time for sure but it wasn't as easy as the routine volley Borg missed to gave Mac their legendary TB or the high floater Sampras bricked to let Federer serve out the third set in 2001.

And while it's true Federer served well even by his high standards that day (compounded by the fact that his opponent was no return genius) there's a slightly mitigating factor to those stats in that Roddick was going for more body serves than usual in order to force errors/weak returns as opposed to trying to bomb down aces like he did in his younger years.
 
gamelovergold said:
Check all the stats of 2019 wimbeldon. Roger was all over novak and still lost.
Novak was outplayed in every department. Up 40 15 2 championship point . That loss hurted badly than loosing the slam race
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It makes me feel a little better when I remember that the first one to break serve in the fifth set of that final was Nole, where he led 4-2. Had he lost the match, would it have been considered a Nole choke?
 
When they do nothing wrong, that means they needs to do something wrong more (i.e. go for the shots and not afraid of making mistake, be more aggressive).
 
abmk said:
1. Fed AO 2005 semi
2. Connors USO 84 semi
3. Nadal Wim 07 final
4. Fed Rome 06 final
5. Becker YEC 96 final
6. Djokovic RG 11 semi
7. Verdasco AO 09 semi
8. Nadal AO 12 final
9. Roddick Wim 09 final
10. Gerulaitis Wim 77 semi

are some that come to mind
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i agree with or can see the case for pretty much all of these, particularly since the eventual losers were generally outmatched to begin with (except for the first and maybe the fifth), but why Djokovic in RG '11 SF?
 
EddieChang said:
Roddick choked the second set away with a very easy volley, and he got outaced badly by Fed which should never happen if he wanted to win.
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Roddick had a pretty high % of unreturned serves.

All unreturned serves:

Federer : 89/197 (45.18%)
Roddick : 99/239 (41.42%)

abmk

Thread 'Federer Roddick Wimbledon 2009 final stats'

Federer def. Roddick 5-7, 7-6(6),7-6(5), 3-6,16-14

Aces :Federer : 50, Roddick : 27

DFs: Federer : 4, Roddick : 4

SWs: Federer : 4, Roddick : 10

FHWs:
Federer : 36 (including 5 passing shot winners)
Roddick : 22 (including 2 passing shot winners and 1 return passing shot winner)

BHWs:
Federer : 8 (including 5 passing shot winners)
Roddick : 7 (including 5 passing shot winners)

FH wing UEs:
Federer : 18
Roddick : 11 (including one return error)

BH wing UEs:
Federer : 15 (including 2 return errors)
Roddick : 18 (including 2 return errors and 3 volley errors)

FH FEs:
Federer ...
  • Like

and what @FD3S said about the volley.
 
Angrybirdstar said:
i agree with or can see the case for pretty much all of these, particularly since the eventual losers were generally outmatched to begin with (except for the first and maybe the fifth), but why Djokovic in RG '11 SF?
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you think djokovic's mistakes were significant enough to take RG 2011 off the list?
one below par stretch of play - 1st half of 2nd set?

bh dtl wasn't working well granted, but partly due to fed mixing it up well.
what else?
 
Henman 2001 Wimbledon semi-final vs Goran. Rain delays over 3-days let Ivanisevic rest his serving arm twice and win in 5 sets, after being 2-1 down in sets and 5-4 down in games.
 
ChrisJR3264 said:
do we dare put the 09 wimby final: Roddick/Federer. 5 sets. Over 4 hours.

I watched that match. I felt for Roddick. Hard to remember if he did minimal wrong but he played his heart out and lost that last set 14-16.
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Roddick just never did learn from his constant mistake of hitting his approach shots to Federer's FH

He is up 6-5 in the 2nd set TB, Fed just hits a short return back into play, then what does Roddick do? Hits his approach shot...to Fed's FH once again when he should have at least hit it to Fed's BH and give himself a better chance of winning that point to go up 2 sets to 0

Credit to Roddick for still hanging in the way he did for the entire 2009 final but he did not deserve to win Wimbledon
 
abmk said:
you think djokovic's mistakes were significant enough to take RG 2011 off the list?
one below par stretch of play - 1st half of 2nd set?

bh dtl wasn't working well granted, but partly due to fed mixing it up well.
what else?
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movement and offensive strategy mostly. RG '11 SF is a pretty clear outlier in that list when it's a 4-setter with the incoming favorite losing, and it's an even bigger outlier when i don't see GOAT cases for any particular aspect of Djokovic's play in the same way as all the other players (would say sustained serving level in Wimbly '09 for Roddick and Federer, and also in RG '11 for Federer). maybe unfair to say that what Djokovic did wrong (more than anything else) was being merely elite, but greatness feels like the implicit expectation from the OP and in the rest of your post
 
Angrybirdstar said:
movement and offensive strategy mostly. RG '11 SF is a pretty clear outlier in that list when it's a 4-setter with the incoming favorite losing, and it's an even bigger outlier when i don't see GOAT cases for any particular aspect of Djokovic's play in the same way as all the other players (would say sustained serving level in Wimbly '09 for Roddick and Federer, and also in RG '11 for Federer). maybe unfair to say that what Djokovic did wrong (more than anything else) was being merely elite, but greatness feels like the implicit expectation from the OP and in the rest of your post
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OP also mentioned:

Thiem x Djokovic 2020 AO
Thiem x Medvedev WTF 2020( excellent match, highly recommend btw)

federer wrong footing and playing tactically astute was atleast partly responsible for some of djokovic relative shortcoming in movement so to say.
djokovic hasn't played any particularly better RGs (11/13/16), though he has played better in clay masters and couple of individual matches at RG.

I would add Agassi vs Sampras USO 01 as well. Just named 10 on top of my head. These are the top 2 high quality 4-setters I know.
 
platypus50 said:
Roddick just never did learn from his constant mistake of hitting his approach shots to Federer's FH

He is up 6-5 in the 2nd set TB, Fed just hits a short return back into play, then what does Roddick do? Hits his approach shot...to Fed's FH once again when he should have at least hit it to Fed's BH and give himself a better chance of winning that point to go up 2 sets to 0

Credit to Roddick for still hanging in the way he did for the entire 2009 final but he did not deserve to win Wimbledon
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federer was in the ad side court still and with a CC approach shot to his BH, roddick would give federer plenty of space to make the pass. In this case, the fh dtl approach shot was the correct one. he just fumbled the volley partly due to mishit from fed and partly due to nerves.

though roddick has made mistake of going to fh when he should have many times vs fed, this was not one of them.
he was approaching fairly well at Wimbledon 09 vs both murray and fed
 
Subway Tennis said:
o_O That would have been incredible.

Were you barracking for either player specifically, or just happy to watch it unfold as epically as possible?
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Luckily I was neutral so I was able to just enjoy the spectacle, but part of me was getting a bit nervous about how long it was going on as I needed to get the train home :laughing:

It was incredible though.
 
Subway Tennis said:
o_O That would have been incredible.

Were you barracking for either player specifically, or just happy to watch it unfold as epically as possible?
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It's not possible, IMO, to remain neutral throughout the course of an entire match. You can start from a neutral position, but as the match progresses, you unwillingly start wishing for one of the guys to win.
 
a10best said:
out of fear from their last few h2h's. Fed was older, so I couldn't waste time watching him lose.
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I was just messing. Definitely painful for Fed fans even as a neutral watching it you could bite the tension with a knife.
 
Del Potro vs Federer in Roland Garros 09.
Played a great match, I think he wasted a 030 to break and win the second set and then played a bad tiebreak (I don't remember exactly, Federer played it good I think)
but othen than that he played really well.
 
mike danny said:
It's not possible, IMO, to remain neutral throughout the course of an entire match. You can start from a neutral position, but as the match progresses, you unwillingly start wishing for one of the guys to win.
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I can confirm i was DEFINITELY not neutral personally. :-D Wanted to see Stan win lol. What an insane match. Pretty jealous of @Hood_Man who saw it all unfold in person.
 
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