Australian Open Day 1: Monday, January 19

[GameSetAndMath]

Oh please is it Rafa's fault he wasnt tested in his first rd match,that was the draw he was given
I am certain Rafa will be tested as he moves through the draw.

Nobody said it was Rafa's fault. You said it can be said about all three. I claim that is not the case.
Actually, on a casual look it appeared that Rafa had a tougher opponent (for him) than the opponents
of Roger or Andy.

 

[Riotbeard]

Oh please is it Rafa's fault he wasnt tested in his first rd match,that was the draw he was given
I am certain Rafa will be tested as he moves through the draw.

Nobody said it was Rafa's fault. You said it can be said about all three. I claim that is not the case.
Actually, on a casual look it appeared that Rafa had a tougher opponent (for him) than the opponents
of Roger or Andy.

Yeah I am not convinced Youzhny played great, but Rafa still made it look easy, which is all he can do.

 

[MargaretMcAleer]

Oh please is it Rafa's fault he wasnt tested in his first rd match,that was the draw he was given
I am certain Rafa will be tested as he moves through the draw.

Nobody said it was Rafa's fault. You said it can be said about all three. I claim that is not the case.
Actually, on a casual look it appeared that Rafa had a tougher opponent (for him) than the opponents
of Roger or Andy.

Any of the top seeds usually in a Grand Slam tournament of the first couple rounds do not have opponents that are difficult.I only saw highlights of Rogers and Murray's matches.To me they came through fine.Also the top seeds are not going to waste a lot of energy in the first say 3 rounds,they want to get through in straight sets,unless their games go astray.

I watched Rafa's match and I didnt see what the fuss was all about with people thinking that The Youz could give him trouble quite frankly,as I said previously it was a good first rd opponent for Rafa
I was quite confident that Rafa would defeat him in three sets..

 

[Front242]

Federer had the highest ranked first opponent out of himself, Nadal, Murray and Djokovic later on. Lu is ranked higher than any of the other opponents there.

 

[Front242]

Youzhny has been poor for quite some time sadly. Once a decent player to watch, I get the feeling he may retire this year or next at the very latest. In fact truckloads will likely retire next year sadly.

 

[Denis]

As a Rafa fan I watched the whole match and I am not Worried at all
One of the most promising signs for me was Rafa's movement in the match.

Yes, his movement was very good indeed. Worryingly good.

Really enjoyed watching his game today. Not the rest of course.

 

[MargaretMcAleer]

As a Rafa fan I watched the whole match and I am not Worried at all
One of the most promising signs for me was Rafa's movement in the match.

Yes, his movement was very good indeed. Worryingly good.

Really enjoyed watching his game today. Not the rest of course.

............

Nole is still the favorite in my opinion to win by the way....

 

[Denis]

Did anyone notice too that Nadal was returning quite aggressively? As in not from the second ring in rod laver?

 

[brokenshoelace]

Forehand was decent for Nadal when he tried to finish off points, but was still a bit short in rallies. That doesn't worry me much at this point because Nadal never feels the need to go for depth against one handed backhands who can't really hurt him, and tends to play with more angles. I really like his positioning when returning serve, although at this point, I've seen enough to know better and I fully expect him to be standing miles behind the baseline against serves who can hurt him. Encouraging start nevertheless.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Did anyone notice too that Nadal was returning quite aggressively? As in not from the second ring in rod laver?

Just read this after I wrote my above post, and yeah, that was the stand-out thing to me. I don't have faith that he'll do it against guys whose serve he's not quite comfortable returning, but I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Haelfix]

Pretty dominating by Rafa. Everything looked really good and I think he's in command of this draw. The court is slow enough, bouncy enough and the balls lively enough to create a perfect storm for him. It's funny watching just how different his game can look from one hard court surface to the next.

I didn't like the way Murray and Roger played and I don't see them getting to the finals. They just don't seem to have the right combination of baseline speed and oomph on their baseline game to really trouble the Nadal/Djokovic duo, and some of the other big baseline players (Berdych etc)

 

[the AntiPusher]

Pretty dominating by Rafa. Everything looked really good and I think he's in command of this draw. The court is slow enough, bouncy enough and the balls lively enough to create a perfect storm for him. It's funny watching just how different his game can look from one hard court surface to the next.

I didn't like the way Murray and Roger played and I don't see them getting to the finals. They just don't seem to have the right combination of baseline speed and oomph on their baseline game to really trouble the Nadal/Djokovic duo, and some of the other big baseline players (Berdych etc)

It was a joy to watch the balls bounce high. It's good to watch the clay court players have an opportunity to construct their games, IMO.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Federer had the highest ranked first opponent out of himself, Nadal, Murray and Djokovic later on. Lu is ranked higher than any of the other opponents there.

Are we really debating who had to face the least crappy out of a crappy bunch of opponents?

 

[Front242]

I wonder if Gulbis just thinks it's still Christmas or whether he is back on his way to the Challenger tour. Not so good results as of late.

He's had a bad shoulder quite a few months now which isn't helping matters and has a lot to do with his poor results. Pretty gutted he lost personally.

 

[tented]

Well, the problem devil) with Rafa is that with each match he will be improving exponentially.
So, he needsto be eliminated fast. You cannot say anything about his form based on his second match which is a gimme.

When will you learn that nothing is a gimme. Wasn't Berrer a gimme? Darcis? Klizan? Brown?

As I was saying ...