David Nalbandian interview for Down the T

[calitennis127]

Okay, I finally have a chance to type these up.

A lot coming shortly....

Excellent. I want to put it all together tonight, and translate the final questions.

Everyone should feel free to vote for questions they are interested by "liking" them. That will help prioritize.

I have a lot more than the 4 above. Just so you know....

I'll throw them out and let you pick. I am putting on an incredible display of the passive-aggressive right now!

 

[calitennis127]

Great job getting an interview with Nalbandian! Some excellent questions already posed and this one isn't meant to be critical but it kind of is..does he regret not working on his serve more as he had such a solid baseline game that surely improving his serve would've made a huge difference. Cutting down on double faults for one thing. He'd have won a lot more matches he had no business losing if not for the serve many times.

Excellent, excellent question.

I have a couple follow-ups to that.

 

[calitennis127]

In all seriousness - Being a peer of Federer and having played against both generations of players, what do you think was the stronger era and which one did you enjoy the most competing against? Generation Federer with Federer, teenager Nadal, Hewitt, Safin, Roddick, Ferrero, Coria, Ljubicic, Davydenko, Ferrer and yourself etc. OR the current one with Djokovic, Murray, Nadal, Del Potro, Tsonga, Berdych, Gasquet, Wawrinka etc.?

Are Berdych, Gasquet, and Wawrinka really a different generation than Nalbandian? I don't see it.

 

[Kieran]

Could ask him: who's your number 1 fan? :snigger

 

[calitennis127]

Could ask him: who's your number 1 fan? :snigger

You wanted the questions. You're getting them now.

 

[tented]

Great job getting an interview with Nalbandian! Some excellent questions already posed and this one isn't meant to be critical but it kind of is..does he regret not working on his serve more as he had such a solid baseline game that surely improving his serve would've made a huge difference. Cutting down on double faults for one thing. He'd have won a lot more matches he had no business losing if not for the serve many times.

Excellent, excellent question.

I have a couple follow-ups to that.

Cali, as Moxie pointed out in the OP, "Nalbandian has agreed to answer a few questions for us."

As in 10-12 at the most, as was also the case with Michael Chang's Down the T interview.

I'd love it if we could do a lengthy interview with him, but unfortunately that won't be the case.

 

[Kieran]

Could ask him: who's your number 1 fan? :snigger

You wanted the questions. You're getting them now.

I'm glad! And I'm glad the team have been able to get this great opportunity for the forum. Daveed is a guy with a great insight and he's coming from a perfect perspective to help us all learn a bit more about life at the top of the game.

Fair play to Moxie, Tented and Britbox! :clap

 

[Moxie]

In all seriousness - Being a peer of Federer and having played against both generations of players, what do you think was the stronger era and which one did you enjoy the most competing against? Generation Federer with Federer, teenager Nadal, Hewitt, Safin, Roddick, Ferrero, Coria, Ljubicic, Davydenko, Ferrer and yourself etc. OR the current one with Djokovic, Murray, Nadal, Del Potro, Tsonga, Berdych, Gasquet, Wawrinka etc.?

Are Berdych, Gasquet, and Wawrinka really a different generation than Nalbandian? I don't see it.

I did some homework on interviews he's given since retiring. He did speak to the notion of the different "eras" of tennis in his experience, and he also addressed what he thought were the most difficult rivals he faced/the ones that brought out his best tennis. (I won't tell you now.) I'll try to elicit this in a question.

 

[Front242]

Looking forward to the interview. Tired and it's getting late here but really interested to hear Nalby's responses. Great work everyone.

 

[calitennis127]

5) It has been well-documented that Nadal and Murray have worked very hard on their serves over the course of their careers. Nadal and Uncle Toni have tinkered with Nadal's serve constantly throughout his career, most notably in early 2008. Murray once had a very weak serve but then he began to study Pete Sampras tapes and practice his serve constantly, until he developed one of the best first serves in the game. But you never seemed to work on your serve as intensively as they did. They apparently did everything they possibly could to improve it, while your serve seemed to stay the same throughout your career.

Did you just not really care about serving? Was it boring to you to practice it?

5b) Nadal routinely makes around 70% of his first serves and hits basically no double faults. He hits very few aces, but he places his serve well and always puts pressure on his opponents by making his first serves and being in good position to attack the return. He also never beats himself with double faults. Likewise, Djokovic has largely eliminated his double fault disease of 2010.

Did you ever think about trying to work on your serve and fitness more so that you could serve a higher percentage and not hit so many double faults? You could have definitely been world #1 if you had addressed this (horrible and inexcusable) problem.

5c) Let's look at your serving in a couple different matches as examples.

In the Madrid 2007 semifinals against Djokovic, you served at 60 percent, which is respectable but not great. But you hit 0 double faults and had 8 aces. So for a day, you basically served like the Big 4. And you beat Djokovic in straight sets.

But in the 2008 Indian Wells quarterfinals against Mardy Fish, you completely undermined yourself with low first-serve percentage and double faults. You made only 54% of your first serves, with just 7 aces and a whopping 8 double faults. Mardy served at 55%, but he had a whopping 23 aces to just 4 double faults. Yet - and this shows just how outstanding your baseline game was - you still served for the match at the end of the third set. But at 6-5, you again hit two double faults. You ended up losing in a tiebreak.

Earlier this year at the Copa Claro you played David Ferrer. We later found out that you were very limited by your hip injury, and of course Ferrer was on top of his game and was supremely fit. But in the first set, you served at 80% and dominated Ferrer. You won the set 6-2 in a fashion that could certainly threaten Nadal at Roland Garros (I am being extremely reserved for the purpose of this interview, folks; don't take my tone here as genuine meekness on this topic - okay Broken and Kieran?). Your tennis was brilliant in that first set.

Now did you ever consider just how easily you would have won pretty much all of your matches if you made around 65% of your first serves and didn't hit so many double faults? In other words, do you realize that you would have virtually never lost any matches if you served around Nadal's level? Many times Nadal has won matches by not beating himself as opposed to being spectacular with his shots.

 

[calitennis127]

Great job getting an interview with Nalbandian! Some excellent questions already posed and this one isn't meant to be critical but it kind of is..does he regret not working on his serve more as he had such a solid baseline game that surely improving his serve would've made a huge difference. Cutting down on double faults for one thing. He'd have won a lot more matches he had no business losing if not for the serve many times.

Excellent, excellent question.

I have a couple follow-ups to that.

Cali, as Moxie pointed out in the OP, "Nalbandian has agreed to answer a few questions for us."

As in 10-12 at the most, as was also the case with Michael Chang's Down the T interview.

I'd love it if we could do a lengthy interview with him, but unfortunately that won't be the case.

I am putting out a large pool. Take what you want.

And thank you for setting this up. It is very interesting indeed.

 

[tented]

Great job getting an interview with Nalbandian! Some excellent questions already posed and this one isn't meant to be critical but it kind of is..does he regret not working on his serve more as he had such a solid baseline game that surely improving his serve would've made a huge difference. Cutting down on double faults for one thing. He'd have won a lot more matches he had no business losing if not for the serve many times.

Excellent, excellent question.

I have a couple follow-ups to that.

Cali, as Moxie pointed out in the OP, "Nalbandian has agreed to answer a few questions for us."

As in 10-12 at the most, as was also the case with Michael Chang's Down the T interview.

I'd love it if we could do a lengthy interview with him, but unfortunately that won't be the case.

I am putting out a large pool. Take what you want.

And thank you for setting this up. It is very interesting indeed.

OK, I just didn't want you to think everything will be asked, only to be disappointed later.

All credit to Moxie for setting this up.

 

[Moxie]

Great job getting an interview with Nalbandian! Some excellent questions already posed and this one isn't meant to be critical but it kind of is..does he regret not working on his serve more as he had such a solid baseline game that surely improving his serve would've made a huge difference. Cutting down on double faults for one thing. He'd have won a lot more matches he had no business losing if not for the serve many times.

Excellent, excellent question.

I have a couple follow-ups to that.

Cali, as Moxie pointed out in the OP, "Nalbandian has agreed to answer a few questions for us."

As in 10-12 at the most, as was also the case with Michael Chang's Down the T interview.

I'd love it if we could do a lengthy interview with him, but unfortunately that won't be the case.

I am putting out a large pool. Take what you want.

And thank you for setting this up. It is very interesting indeed.

I will, thanks. I'm not that interested in grilling him, or being negative. I'm feeling some themes, and think I have enough to make 10-12 good questions. If you have a less-specific and over-all fan question, Cali, give it a think, if you want to add another. I don't think I'm going to poke at him with some of those specifics, but I'll see what can be incorporated.

Thanks everyone for the input.

 

[Iona16]

David Nalbandian has agreed to answer a few questions for us. I promised to submit by tomorrow. Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to ask.

I think anything I would have asked has been covered already. I'm really looking forward to reading the transcript.

Excellent work Moxie, Tented and Britbox. An interview with Nalbandian is very impressive. :clap

 

[britbox]

A lot of the questions that spring to mind have already been touched on, so mine would be related to post-career:

"Do you intend to stay heavily involved in the sport? and if so, to what degree? Coaching, Media? "

 

[calitennis127]

Some more questions....

6) What on earth happened at the 2008 Australian Open against Ferrero, right after your run at the end of 2007? Were you sick during that match?

7) Novak Djokovic was quoted as saying after the classic 2008 Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal that "he still had a lot to learn" about being great and winning the biggest matches at the most important events. That remark came on the heels of Djokovic's losses to Nadal at Hamburg, the French Open, and Queen's Club. Many people forget this, but in the Hamburg semifinals Djokovic was actually playing Nadal for the #2 ranking, because he had just won the Australian Open, Indian Wells, and Rome (Nadal lost to Ferrero with his blister injury early on in Rome). So Djokovic had very nearly reached the top of the game in the spring of 2008, but Nadal denied him and actually went on to have the best year of his career to that point.

But Djokovic's well-publicized remark after the Wimbledon final that year indicated an ambition and a hunger to be #1 one day. You could almost say that he was envious of the stature Federer and Nadal had, and the match that they had just produced.

Likewise, before Nadal and Murray won Wimbledon, they both made it very clear that this was their ultimate tennis goal. Nadal wanted at all costs to be the first Spaniard to win the event in over 40 years and Murray wanted at all costs to be the first Brit in almost 80 years to win Wimbledon.

Now, throughout your career, you were never quoted as saying anything of this nature. At no time did you seem to be willing to die for this kind of goal. Djokovic seemed envious of Federer and Nadal, and he seemed to want to take them off their perch. Nadal wanted to win Wimbledon at all costs and to unseat Federer from his Wimbledon throne. Murray made it his life mission to win Wimbledon. Federer even had to battle and claw and get embarrassed by Nadal time after time before finally winning the French Open at age 27 and completing the career Grand Slam.

But when it came to your individual goals, it seemed that you never had this sort of aspiration. You never seemed to live for winning Wimbledon or being world #1. Why was this? Was it because you felt it would be too demanding to make the sacrifices necessary to reach those heights? Were you just not that interested in this sort of pursuit? You never seemed to live for it like Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, and Federer did.

 

[calitennis127]

Great job getting an interview with Nalbandian! Some excellent questions already posed and this one isn't meant to be critical but it kind of is..does he regret not working on his serve more as he had such a solid baseline game that surely improving his serve would've made a huge difference. Cutting down on double faults for one thing. He'd have won a lot more matches he had no business losing if not for the serve many times.

Excellent, excellent question.

I have a couple follow-ups to that.

Cali, as Moxie pointed out in the OP, "Nalbandian has agreed to answer a few questions for us."

As in 10-12 at the most, as was also the case with Michael Chang's Down the T interview.

I'd love it if we could do a lengthy interview with him, but unfortunately that won't be the case.

I am putting out a large pool. Take what you want.

And thank you for setting this up. It is very interesting indeed.

I will, thanks. I'm not that interested in grilling him, or being negative. I'm feeling some themes, and think I have enough to make 10-12 good questions. If you have a less-specific and over-all fan question, Cali, give it a think, if you want to add another. I don't think I'm going to poke at him with some of those specifics, but I'll see what can be incorporated.

Thanks everyone for the input.

Well, you guys got me started. So I am just firing away. I think I am done for the moment.:idea:

 

[calitennis127]

8) It was often said of you that you liked the big stages and the big matches. Commentators would often remark that you loved to challenge the top-ranked players, and that this brought out the best in you, while you tended to be disinterested and unmotivated when playing lower-ranked players.

What is interesting about this is that not only did you defeat or outplay the top players at certain points, but you actually did it at some of the peak moments in their careers.

You famously beat Federer at the 2005 Masters Cup as he was riding a 40- or 50-something match win streak on hardcourts and had won over 15 consecutive finals. You also very nearly beat Federer in 2006 at Rome and Roland Garros, at a time when Federer was pretty much not losing sets to anyone except Nadal. Then you beat Federer twice at the end of 2007 on hardcourts, right after he had just won another US Open and was solidly #1. Federer admitted to being dominated at the back of the court by you in the Paris match.

In 2008, Murray was #2 and was riding a 14-match win streak before you played him at the Paris Masters. He had just won Cincinnati, made the final of the US Open, won the Madrid Masters, won multiple Davis Cup matches, and won the title in St. Petersburg. He was playing some of the best tennis in his career. Yet, you dominated him in your quarterfinal match in Paris.

Nadal was firmly world #1 and had just beaten Federer at Wimbledon and the Australian Open when you played him at Indian Wells in early 2009. You thoroughly outplayed him throughout the first two sets before losing 5 match points. But everyone knows you should have won the match.

Djokovic had his breakout season in 2007 and was largely dominant on hardcourts. Yet, you beat him in Madrid in the semifinals.

Del Potro had his breakout season in 2008, when he had a phenomenal summer on hardcourts. Yet, you beat him twice at the end of the season on hardcourts, in Basel and in Paris.

So you went toe-to-toe with and often dominated the very best players at some of the peak moments in their careers. With that said, when you have watched them win so many titles over the years, have you ever felt a competitive fire or a resentment toward their success? Didn't you ever feel that with your supreme talent you should have been on top? Didn't it ever bother you to see them winning so many titles when you had not only been able to beat them, but beat them in some of the very best moments of their own careers?

 

[Riotbeard]

This is very exciting. Nalbandian has TRULY been one of the most electrifying players ever to watch, when he is at his best! I just wish it was more often. Such a shame he has retired. I don't have a specific question Mox, but please do a question about that beautiful backhand. How does he think his compares to Novak? Who has the best now (it would have been a coin flip between him and nole)?

 

[Moxie]

You're not the only one to bring up the BH, so I think I'll work it in. It's worth it.