imjimmy said:
Congratulations to all the Federer fans. Federer played very well, was the best player in the tournament and deserved the trophy.
The most improvements I saw from him were on his footwork and execution on the backhand side. He seems to be doing better on the wide balls to his backhand than he has in the past several years. And of course he is still serving very well.
For Nadal the defeat would be bitterly disappointing. Yes, he was back from a lean patch, but this was a big missed opportunity,especially considering he was facing Fed in the final.
The law of averages caught up with him. He had dug himself out of hole in the 3rd round and then again in the SF. But he finished those matches brilliantly. In the final though,he had used up all his nine lives, it seemed. He was 22 last time when he won the AO playing 2 consecutive five setters with one less day of rest. But he's not the same player anymore.
Positives for Rafa are his mental belief and aggression when he's down ( break points etc..). These were sorely missing (for the past couple of years) and generally what makes him a great player. Furthermore, his backhand is firing and he is moving well towards that side. He also showed the ability to be aggressive on the ROS especially in the QF against Raonic.
The negatives: His serve. It's hard to overstate the importance of this. He can't afford to get his serve broken so many times and still expect to win slams. Free points on serve would make his life much easier and his opponents' that much harder given how often he is able to break. Rafa's forehand could also be better. While he is getting good depth in general, he still hasn't been able to get the angles on the off-forehand with which he used to yank his opponents side to side.
Overall, I thought Rafa looked a little flat in the final. He seemed to play re-actively to tactics that Federer was employing. He still managed to get to 5 sets and was a break up in the 5th, so he can't be too hard on himself. But he wasn't able to settle in a groove as he has done in the past against Federer. His ROS positioning was also very defensive, which is hard to understand given that he had so much success in the QF and SF by taking the ball early. It would be interesting to see how Rafa responds when these 2 champions play each other next.
This was for the 15th slam and to be the first (open era) player to get a double career slam. Rafa isn't getting any younger and with a resurgent Novak, Andy and talented youngsters on the horizon (not least Dimitrov and Zverev) things will only get harder. So who knows when (and if) the 15th would come.
Still, given his last couple of years, this performance is very heartening, and at very least gets Rafa back in the mix, where he deserves to be..
Welcome back, Imjimmy, and hopefully we'll see you here a lot more. Always good to read your balanced views.
Just a couple of minor things about this post: I think most people would agree that Rafa was flatter than usual due to the long and grueling semi. But he actually was fine on serve in both the quarters and semi, bar his second set wobbles in both matches. He was aggressive, assertive and he controlled the rallies. He wasn't like that in the final, but a lack of mental sharpness will do that.
Likewise, on the return. Milos rains down hell on a fast court, but Rafa was in tight on the baseline and clicking. But his reflexes and reaction times weren't as sharp in the final, so he stood further back, hope to get a longer look at it, but generally this didn't help. Otherwise, I completely agree, and the backhand throughout the event was a mighty thing. I'm judging him more on his play coming into the final, where I think we can get a better idea of his levels. Generally, it's a vast improvement on 2015/2016, most especially in the mental department, but he's still not wobble-proof and so he's still not back. In almost every match he wobbled in a very unRafa-like way. This is understandable, and may only be a signpost on the journey back to full everything, but until it's corrected, he's going to be out on court longer than he needs to be.
I agree totally with your caveat:
Rafa isn't getting any younger and with a resurgent Novak, Andy and talented youngsters on the horizon (not least Dimitrov and Zverev) things will only get harder. So who knows when (and if) the 15th would come.
But I admire his honesty and integrity in busting a gut to make it happen, but if it doesn't happen naturally, he's going to have to settle for the remarkable record he already has...
