Bodo just loves Rafa

[Moxie]

Federer should have beaten Nadal in many of those clay losses

Rome 2006, Hamburg 2008, and...?

You bring up the best possible matches, Broken, as chances for Roger. And, as SF Nadalite pointed out above, how is "should" even a thing?

 

[tented]

Federer should have beaten Nadal in many of those clay losses

Rome 2006, Hamburg 2008, and...?

RG 2008.

 

[calitennis127]

Federer should have beaten Nadal in many of those clay losses

Rome 2006, Hamburg 2008, and...?

Monte Carlo 2008 and, more than any other, Roland Garros 2011. Amazing how you would omit the 2011 French Open final from your little list there.

I can even take it more broadly and say, for instance, that with better preparation and a better plan he should have won the 2007 Roland Garros final. But the 2011 final is far and away the occasion on which he absolutely should not have lost to Nadal at the French, based on the way the match was played.

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Federer should have beaten Nadal in many of those clay losses, and if he had, this conversation about total dominance of the era would not need to be had at all.

SHOULD??

I'm not a fan of Bodo, but SHOULD is not a word used in anything reflecting history.

If you want hard facts, check how many winners Federer has hit over the years on clay. It's a lot. You take that into consideration along with his defensive skills, his record should not be what it is against Nadal on clay. It is far too lopsided. The only explanation is poor strategy on his part, given his shots, athleticism, and overall talent vis-a-vis Nadal.

 

[lindseywagners]

well, the "different type of good, of dominance" is just a lesser kind, no?

Good point.

Fed simply was never as dominant at SW19 as Rafa is at RG. (another difference, though, is that there's no grass 'season' to dominate, so while we always had more than two months of Rafa sweeping the floor with everyone else, there's nothing like this for any other player over so many years (Fed and Novak respectively more or less did that on hards, but for a shorter period).

you're right of course, of the quality of narratives and drama. and you do point out that you don't blame Rafa for it. but still, i don't think it's right to talk about different types or manners of winning - it's not about the specific way in which he dominates, it's about the overwhelming extent to which he has done so. but again, this is ignoring a number of close matches, the whole injury thing and the Novak narrative.

btw, to an extent, this whole thing is Fed's fault. with the exception of Rome back in the day, Rafa hardly played any nail-biter tight great clay finals because so many times, the guy on the other side of the net was Fed, who was head and shoulders above the rest on the surface, but personally incapable on challenging Rafa.

I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring one type of winning of a second type. It's the same as preferring one person's personality over a different person's, which we all do in constructing our relationships.

I wouldn't say it's Federer's fault either. That's a bit extreme. Though had Roger won some of those matches, the story would be different -- probably even more "boring" because then it would likely be all Federer as the GOAT with no disputing.

 

[Haelfix]

What a terrible article =/

 

[Johnsteinbeck]

I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring one type of winning of a second type. It's the same as preferring one person's personality over a different person's, which we all do in constructing our relationships.

i'm not saying that you shan't be bored with excessive domination. i'm just trying to point out that speaking of "different types of winning" sounds like what you're really talking about is the game here, which is another question of personal taste, but not the one brought up and discussed here.

the "type of winning" isn't drastically different, at least not in the way that it's been discussed here: Nadal wins matches and tournaments, lots of them.

so i don't think it's like two different personalities. it's just that you see the one person comparatively sporadically compared to the guy that's been hogging your apartment every spring for 8 years straight. it's not 'how' he does it*, it's nothing in how behaves, it's just that he's here sooo damn much that's bothering some, even though he has every right to.

*of course, Bodo's dislike for the "how" of Rafa is, imo, one of the truer reasons for articles like that. but that's not what he's bringing up and discussing here. sorry to be so nitpicky in this, but this is why i don't want this line blurred. Bodo (and some others) don't like the way Rafa plays or can't relate to him for whatever reason, and therefore hates to see him win year after year - and now he tries to justify his distaste by saying "it's because he wins too much and too easy".

 

[brokenshoelace]

Roland Garros 2011. Amazing how you would omit the 2011 French Open final from your little list there.

I can even take it more broadly and say, for instance, that with better preparation and a better plan he should have won the 2007 Roland Garros final. But the 2011 final is far and away the occasion on which he absolutely should not have lost to Nadal at the French, based on the way the match was played.

Federer outplayed Nadal in that match for the first 5-6 games, then the last 3 games of the 3rd set, and the first 3 points of the fourth (where he went 0-40 only for Nadal to save all the BP's with winners).

Nadal outplayed him in the second half of the first set, the 2nd set, the majority of the 3rd (where Nadal led by a break and should have closed it out in 3, but of course you'd ignore that), and obviously the fourth.

So no, Federer SHOULD not have won that match. He COULD have won it if he had continued to play as good as he did starting the match. Of course you think that would have been easy against Nadal on clay. I'll admit Federer's level dropped way too much (meaning the disparity between the highest of highest and the lowest of lows in that match was HUGE), but saying he SHOULD have won a match in which he was never ahead in after the first half of the opening set is silly.