Now that the dust settles... Let’s take a closer look at RG 2021 draw.

Yugram

Yugram

Legend
Let’s start with saying that the draw is rigged. The best proof for it being Medvedev vs Bublik R1, a gimmick match up of 2 clay haters, which screams "rigged".

So I’ll keep in mind that everything has it’s purpose while analyzing the draw.

My takes:

• Quarter 1 is by far the easiest one. Organizers probably think that Djokovic needs assist in order for him to reach Nadal, giving his unconvincing clay resume this year, which I think is false, but it is what it is. The World #1 should enjoy his match up against Berrettini, who lacks mobility to counter Djokovic’s creative play.

• Marco Checchinato, who is currently in his best form in a while, is relatively close to Djokovic, and should actually be able to make it a match, as the top seed of this section, David Goffin, is in awful form.

• Federer will face qualifier in his R1 and, as everything in this draw has purpose, I feel like this place might be reserved for Carlos Alcaraz. Just a speculation for now.

• Quarter 2 is stacked with in-form players of this clay season and is meant to end with Nadal avenging his MC loss, though I wouldn’t count it as a given, as Rublev’s form started to drop significantly after Monte Carlo.

• Nadal vs Sinner match up is quickly becoming best seller, which every tournament would like to have.

• In Quarter 3, Thiem has close to no time to play himself into form, as 4 good clay courters in a row await him. It looks to me like the organizers want Thiem out of their picture as soon as possible.

• Zverev vs Nishikori R4 could be thriller, but other than that, German’s path is very soft.

• Some early popcorns expect Tsitsipas, as Chardy, Korda and Isner await him right away.

• If Tsitsipas does fall in Quarter 4, it will quickly become a chaotic mess, in which I fully expect Carreno Busta to capitalize and make the SF
 
ForehandCross

ForehandCross

G.O.A.T.
Yugram said:
@ForehandCross
@TripleATeam

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I suspect Zverev will be the guy to observe closely. He has an open draw, Thiem is not in form and has Ruud, Fucsovics as well. Tsitsipas is a challenge but he can overcome it.


RG has tried to ensure that it can have the most block busters while staying within seed restrictions.

They have ensured that Djokovic reaches SF so that we get a Djokodal, they have given a soft draw to Federer to ensure that if he is in any form we get Djokerrer. They have put Sonego-Nadal, Rublev -Nadal and Sinner- Nadal after seeing the clay season results.

They have rigged this tbh.

Nadal should win nonetheless. But his draw is hard, I am not going to pretend otherwise.
 
Yugram

Yugram

Legend
ForehandCross said:
I suspect Zverev will be the guy to observe closely. He has an open draw, Thiem is not in form and has Ruud, Fucsovics as well. Tsitsipas is a challenge but he can overcome it.


RG has tried to ensure that it can have the most block busters while staying within seed restrictions.

They have ensured that Djokovic reaches SF so that we get a Djokodal, they have given a soft draw to Federer to ensure that if he is in any form we get Djokerrer. They have put Sonego-Nadal, Rublev -Nadal and Sinner- Nadal after seeing the clay season results.

They have rigged this tbh.

Nadal should win nonetheless. But his draw is hard, I am not going to pretend otherwise.
Click to expand...
I see that they desperately want it to be about Djokovic vs Nadal and Tsitsipas vs Zverev, else they wouldn't give Thiem such a hard draw. Who of these 4 do you think is most likely to ruin the script?
 
ForehandCross

ForehandCross

G.O.A.T.
Yugram said:
I see that they desperately want it to be about Djokovic vs Nadal and Tsitsipas vs Zverev, else they wouldn't give Thiem such a hard draw. Who of these 4 do you think is most likely to ruin the script?
Click to expand...

I have a hunch that this time none of them will fall before SF.

Zverev might be unreliable, but I believe he will stay steady. Stefanos is in form and is not going to lose early.

And Djokodal are Djokodal.

The only person that can disrupt it is Thiem if he somehow finds his form. But I think he is going out to Ruud.
 
TripleATeam

TripleATeam

G.O.A.T.
Yugram said:
Let’s start with saying that the draw is rigged. The best proof for it being Medvedev vs Bublik R1, a gimmick match up of 2 clay haters, which screams "rigged".

So I’ll keep in mind that everything has it’s purpose while analyzing the draw.

My takes:

• Quarter 1 is by far the easiest one. Organizers probably think that Djokovic needs assist in order for him to reach Nadal, giving his unconvincing clay resume this year, which I think is false, but it is what it is. The World #1 should enjoy his match up against Berrettini, who lacks mobility to counter Djokovic’s creative play.

• Marco Checchinato, who is currently in his best form in a while, is relatively close to Djokovic, and should actually be able to make it a match, as the top seed of this section, David Goffin, is in awful form.

• Federer will face qualifier in his R1 and, as everything in this draw has purpose, I feel like this place might be reserved for Carlos Alcaraz. Just a speculation for now.

• Quarter 2 is stacked with in-form players of this clay season and is meant to end with Nadal avenging his MC loss, though I wouldn’t count it as a given, as Rublev’s form started to drop significantly after Monte Carlo.

• Nadal vs Sinner match up is quickly becoming best seller, which every tournament would like to have.

• In Quarter 3, Thiem has close to no time to play himself into form, as 4 good clay courters in a row await him. It looks to me like the organizers want Thiem out of their picture as soon as possible.

• Zverev vs Nishikori R4 could be thriller, but other than that, German’s path is very soft.

• Some early popcorns expect Tsitsipas, as Chardy, Korda and Isner await him right away.

• If Tsitsipas does fall in Quarter 4, it will quickly become a chaotic mess, in which I fully expect Carreno Busta to capitalize and make the SF
Click to expand...
In terms of rigged or not, there's 64 matches in the R1. If even 2% of potential matchups make 'popcorn' matches, then we're likely to see one in any given draw. I'm not saying it's not rigged, but I'd need to look further into math over a longer time frame.

Q1 is definitely easiest. Djokovic's draw is the 2nd best draw that could have happened, right behind Federer-Thiem-Nadal/Zverev/Tsitsipas. I anticipate Djokovic will lose maybe 2 sets on his way to Nadal.

Cecchinato not likely to make a match of it. Might be the best in the section, but I wouldn't be surprised at Musetti taking that 16th of the draw.

I don't think the draw is stacked against Nadal. It's not easy, but it's also not monstrous. All they would have had to do to make it an insane draw is place Zverev or Tsitsipas in Nadal's quarter (50% chance) but they didn't. I don't expect Sonego to touch Nadal, and Sinner only if the conditions are 100% right.

Thiem was never going to be a factor here. There was no getting out of his half, regardless of the draw, but this one might make him a factor. If he can relight that fire by beating one good clay courter, he'll need to run the gauntlet, but it might be the motivation he needs to do something.


Own takes:
We might see Schwartzman-Karatsev and I'm happy to watch that in the R3.

Thiem's draw (Andujar, Delbonis, Fognini, Ruud, Zverev, Tsitsipas, Nadal) is monstrous. That's a 10/10 difficulty draw if I ever saw one.

Might be interesting to see what Garin does in Q4. Could take the quarter. My main contenders for that quarter are Opelka, Garin, PCB, Tsitsipas. Definitely think Garin takes the bottom 16th though.
 
zvelf

zvelf

Hall of Fame
Ruud has the greatest likelihood of making it out of the Zverev-Thiem quarter. Tsitsipas's quarter is easier than Djokovic's. It's filled with big servers who otherwise suck on clay. Tsitsipas is almost a lock for the semis. People overrate Korda who is 4-4 on clay this year.
 
Yugram

Yugram

Legend
TripleATeam said:
In terms of rigged or not, there's 64 matches in the R1. If even 2% of potential matchups make 'popcorn' matches, then we're likely to see one in any given draw. I'm not saying it's not rigged, but I'd need to look further into math over a longer time frame.
Click to expand...
I just think that there are too many match ups that scream rigged, even though I’m not usually supporting the claims of fraud. The fact that they made it secretly, unlike any other year, feeds suspicion.
 
Yugram

Yugram

Legend
zvelf said:
Ruud has the greatest likelihood of making it out of the Zverev-Thiem quarter. Tsitsipas's quarter is easier than Djokovic's. It's filled with big servers who otherwise suck on clay. Tsitsipas is almost a lock for the semis. People overrate Korda who is 4-4 on clay this year.
Click to expand...
Remember that Tsitsipas’s return sucks.

I find possibility of rematch against Ruud in SF very exciting, considering how convincingly he's beaten Tsitsipas in Madrid.
 
Kralingen

Kralingen

Talk Tennis Guru
Yugram said:
Remember that Tsitsipas’s return sucks.

I find possibility of rematch against Ruud in SF very exciting, considering how convincingly he‘s beaten Tsitsipas in Madrid.
Click to expand...
Ruud would have to beat Thiem and Zverev though, which, don't get me wrong, he could. but Tsitsipas has the easiest quarter IMO.
look at the Medvedev 1/8th:
2 seed - Medvedev
16 - Dimitrov (who has looked awful)
Garin
Opelka

Garin is probably going to make a FO QF and he is the definition of a mug in Europe. He rules South American clay but has not impressed me once in a Masters 1000 or better. All Tsitsipas has to do is beat a big server like Isner or Querrey and then probably Carreno Busta, who he is certainly better than, owning a 2-0 record over him.

Djokovic has it pretty easy as well but Berrettini is better than all of those players listed above.
 
Hitman

Hitman

Bionic Poster
The draw is ALWAYS rigged.

Don't think it is only ever rigged to make things tough for Nadal. Draws have been rigged for a very long time, and I said this is going to be no different, it is just that they didn't give a crap about being subtle about it on this occasion.
 
Yugram

Yugram

Legend
Kralingen said:
Ruud would have to beat Thiem and Zverev though, which, don't get me wrong, he could. but Tsitsipas has the easiest quarter IMO.
look at the Medvedev 1/8th:
2 seed - Medvedev
16 - Dimitrov (who has looked awful)
Garin
Opelka

Garin is probably going to make a FO QF and he is the definition of a mug in Europe. He rules South American clay but has not impressed me once in a Masters 1000 or better. All Tsitsipas has to do is beat a big server like Isner or Querrey and then probably Carreno Busta, who he is certainly better than, owning a 2-0 record over him.

Djokovic has it pretty easy as well but Berrettini is better than all of those players listed above.
Click to expand...
A shame they didn’t put Ruud in Djokovic’s Quarter and Berrettini in Tsitsipas’s. Would’ve been better balance-wise.
 
Yugram

Yugram

Legend
Hitman said:
The draw is ALWAYS rigged.

Don't think it is only ever rigged to make things tough for Nadal. Draws have been rigged for a very long time, and I said this is going to be no different, it is just that they didn't give a crap about being subtle about it on this occasion.
Click to expand...
Note that I don’t say it’s all meant to harm Nadal. They just have a certain script that they think will attract the most attention.
 
Hitman

Hitman

Bionic Poster
Yugram said:
Note that I don’t say it’s all meant to harm Nadal. They just have a certain script that they think will attract the most attention.
Click to expand...

This has always been the case with them. I saw all this happen since the 90s.
 
N

Nuclear Warhead Sinner

Guest
Hitman said:
The draw is ALWAYS rigged.

Don't think it is only ever rigged to make things tough for Nadal. Draws have been rigged for a very long time, and I said this is going to be no different, it is just that they didn't give a crap about being subtle about it on this occasion.
Click to expand...
The constant reiteration of the Sinner vs Nadal matchup is very sketchy. I'm actually starting to think you might be right.
 
El_Yotamo

El_Yotamo

Hall of Fame
I think Ruud, Berrettini and Karatsev will reach the QF, Ruud might reach the semis if he plays well and Zverev doesn't bring his A game (and he very rarely brings his A game) and he might even reach the final (!!) if the trio of Thiem, Zverev and Tsitsipas aren't at their best (not too low of a chance). In the 4th quarter I don't see Tsitsipas having too much of an issue at weathering the storm of the big Americans he's been dealt. Oh and I forgot to add, I think Tsitsipas plays Opelka on his merry way to the SF
 
Last edited:
ChaelAZ

ChaelAZ

G.O.A.T.
Yugram said:
Let’s start with saying that the draw is rigged.
Click to expand...

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tenor.gif
 
dapchai

dapchai

Legend
This is the 9th time Nadalovic are placed in the same half when they're not simultaneously no.1 and no.2 at RG (previously 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017).

While Djokovic can enjoy his cupcake draw this year, Nadal's gonna have a hard time.
 
Beckerserve

Beckerserve

Legend
dapchai said:
This is the 9th time Nadalovic are placed in the same half when they're not simultaneously no.1 and no.2 at RG (previously 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017).

While Djokovic can enjoy his cupcake draw this year, Nadal's gonna have a hard time.
Click to expand...
How is Nadals harder than Djokovic bar sinner?
 
Beckerserve

Beckerserve

Legend
dapchai said:
Sonego, Karatsev/Rublev as far as I can tell. Potential threats out there.
Click to expand...
Sonego? What has he ever done outside Italy? As for Rublev or Karatsev that is just gold for Rafa as he was going to get one of Zverev Federer Tsitispas Rublev in a QF and no offence to rublev but he would be the one id pick.
 
Jokervich

Jokervich

Hall of Fame
Yugram said:
• In Quarter 3, Thiem has close to no time to play himself into form, as 4 good clay courters in a row await him. It looks to me like the organizers want Thiem out of their picture as soon as possible.
Click to expand...
Not sure why but I laughed hard at this one :-D What makes you think they want Thiem "out of their picture as soon as possible"? :laughing:
 
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