Does this mean you think he has a legitimate chance to win Madrid or the FO? Most of us Fed fans are thinking a QF in Madrid or a second week at RG constitutes a win at his age. I like your eternal optimism!
Appreciate that.
As for Madrid/RG. Well, since his return at AO17, Fedr has missed reaching the SFs or better in M1000s only once (!) at Miami18, a fluke really and Fedr's form was bad then. His form is way better this time. As Fedr has said before, if you're in SFs and Fs, you have chances to win it all.
Am I expecting a win at either Madrid or RG? Nope. But I think he's a contender. It's not like there's a rule saying he HAS to play either Nadal/Djokovic/Thiem to win any of them right? And this clay season is the most uncertain from 2017-19 (Nadal injury and much older, Djokovic poor form, Fedr good form, Thiem poor clay form in South American swing). Thru 2 tournaments (IW19/Miami19), Fedr played the maximum # of matches by reaching the finals of both, yet he only had a chance to play Nadal and Thiem in the same tournament. Nadal ended up ducking Fedr, and Fedr should've beaten Thiem (read: vs. Thiem, Fedr has a 50/50 chance minimum
).
The thing is, optimism is how Fedr can still be on the tour with such zest. Cup-half-full or cup-half-empty is the same thing, but the one who sees the cup-half-full (Fedr) usually has an easier time (don't confuse this with being blind
). Right after the match, Fedr did say that he played well, but Thiem was just a bit better. Fedr just shrugged the Thiem loss and went straight to practice the following Monday in Miami. That's his cup-half-full.
See the below post that I made on the Monday of Miami19, a day after Fedr lost to Thiem in IW19 finals (I bolded some text). It's with a bit of hope then, but I 'could' imagine that had he won IW19, he might've celebrated too late and get to Miami19 later than that Monday, dealt with the rained-out Tuesday, and likely even more hectic schedules from qualies and even more congested schedules, and then completely wreck his practice schedule. This might really lead to an early round loss, netting much less than the 1600pts that he just won, and still resulting in only 1 title. Even if he ended up with the same results but flipped, leaving Miami with a title is better than leaving as a Miami finalist but won IW, imo.
My old very optimistic post, 2 weeks ago, for Miami19
:
I hear ya. No confirmation yet, but I'm hearing the conditions, medium-slow CPI, might be slightly faster than IW19. It's a new venue, and I think Fedr has a history of doing well in new places/conditions (i.e. blue-clay Madrid win, Istanbul win, London-WTF, Shanghai-WTF win?, Stuttgart SF?, etc.).
I'm optimistic. I can see him winning IW19 and flopping at Miami19, but by him NOT winning IW19, he 'may' win Miami19 and net more points total bc of the hunger of losing IW19.
We'll see .
