Early Roland Garros thread

[Moxie]

It is only "a bit funny" if you think I take my historical inquiries more seriously than I actually do. I have said, again and again (and again) that they aren't meant to be definitive - they are explorations, meant for fun and to give me a better sense of things, but not to come up with the One Final True Answer.

That said, I think it is more meaningful to look at precedents across a wide range of players, than one single player. To say that Rafa has never won RG without winning at least one earlier clay tournament isn't all that meaningful or predictive. But to say that all 6+ Slam winners have accomplished X-Y-and-Z is more predictive...but still not definitive, as precedents are always broken (e.g. Stan being the first 3+ Slam winner to win his first Slam at age 28).

I think we agree that his form in his last match in Rome will be the best indicator...at least up until we see him step onto the courts at Roland Garros.

Dude, I'm not trying to give you a hard time...I always enjoy your explorations into the stats. You know I was more poking at GSM. My point was rather, since you say about "6+ Slam winners," there is not real predictor for Nadal, as no one has won 11 RGs, or indeed any Slam 11 times. This is where I went for the prose, and you did, too. It has to be more about the eye test.

If it were just stats, and Wawrinka, Gaudio, Costa, Chang, Courier, Agassi, Lendl and Kuerten can win RG w/o winning another clay tournament in their year, surely Rafa can, but history can only tell us so much. (Full disclosure: I looked back at Rosewall, and he'd won Bournemouth, which I assumed was grass, but it was clay. Funny, innit? I also took a much stricter requirement than GSM requested, being just MC, Barcelona, Madrid(Hamburg), Rome. I included only the players that won no clay tournament in that same year.) I don't think anyone's ready to write off Rafa at RG, but this is what I gleaned by looking at past winners, for what it's worth.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

What good is an early RG talk thread without the insight of bookies.

Twenty players have 1% or better chances.

Here are the latest odds.

1. Ralph 7/5 (41.66%)
2. Novak 5/2 (28.57%)
3. Thiem 9/2 (18.18%)
4. Sasha 20 (4.76%)
5. Federer 25 (3.85%)
6. Coin Thrower 40 (2.44%)
7. Fog / Man 50 (1.96%)
9. Perseus 55 (1.79%)
10. Special K 75 (1.32%)
11. Cough Drop / FAA / Khachanov / Clown 80 (1.25%)
15. Bad Boy 90 (1.09%)
16. Baby / Andy/ Kandy / Delpo / Coric 100 (1%)

The interesting thing is that field has better chances of winning than Ralph.

The laughable thing is Andy making it into this list. o_O

Another interesting thing to note is that there is only one Spaniard with a puncher's chance. Gone are the days in which Almagro, Ferrer, Verdasco, Montanes, PCB, RBA etc used to populate this list (of course many of them are retired or are about to retire).

 

[GameSetAndMath]

You make a great dance out of backing off of saying that Rafa has zero chance of winning RG if he fails to win Madrid and or Rome. That doesn't really make up for your manipulating of stats, or making the puniest of stats to that end. Of everything you've said, the only statement that makes sense is what I bolded above.

That is exactly the reason why the stats involving other players are not relevant here. Rafa is a confidence player and so it is a lot more important for Rafa than other players (in your list which I must admit is longer than I imagined) to win at least one clay tourney before going into RG.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

What is up with Delpo. Not to be seen for a while/

 

[Moxie]

That is exactly the reason why the stats involving other players are not relevant here. Rafa is a confidence player and so it is a lot more important for Rafa than other players (in your list which I must admit is longer than I imagined) to win at least one clay tourney before going into RG.

Look, you're the one that asked for stats, so I chased a few up. It's not even a complete list. Sure, Rafa is a confidence player, but I don't agree that it's more important for Rafa than other players on "my" list to have won a tune-up or two in order to win RG. He'd be the one with far more confidence than anyone on tour that he knows how to win at RG. Anyway, see my discussion with El Dude of today. What will matter is form, more than titles. It's not like he doesn't have loads of those. I know you live in endless hope that Rafa will fail, constantly chasing stats and betting odds to shore it up. You seem to enjoy it more even than championing your man Fed, which isn't a great look. All will be revealed in about 5-6 weeks, in any case.

 

[Moxie]

What is up with Delpo. Not to be seen for a while/

https://www.atptour.com/en/news/del-potro-madrid-2019-first-practice

In Madrid for his return to play.

 

[Horsa]

He's a great blues man. Mediocre clay player.

Thank you very much for the information. I enjoyed the song you shared.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Look, you're the one that asked for stats, so I chased a few up. It's not even a complete list. Sure, Rafa is a confidence player, but I don't agree that it's more important for Rafa than other players on "my" list to have won a tune-up or two in order to win RG. He'd be the one with far more confidence than anyone on tour that he knows how to win at RG. Anyway, see my discussion with El Dude of today. What will matter is form, more than titles. It's not like he doesn't have loads of those. I know you live in endless hope that Rafa will fail, constantly chasing stats and betting odds to shore it up. You seem to enjoy it more even than championing your man Fed, which isn't a great look. All will be revealed in about 5-6 weeks, in any case.

I am not chastising you for looking up the stats. But, I requested stats only because you objected to me looking at Rafa only.

 

[Moxie]

I am not chastising you for looking up the stats. But, I requested stats only because you objected to me looking at Rafa only.

And you don't think they relate to Rafa. You were looking for back up for your notion that most players who win RG also win a reasonable number of tune-ups, or at least one. That appears not to be the case, historically, or at least not in enough cases to make it a "trueism." Where it was true in Rafa's case was in 2015-16, his worst years on tour. He didn't do much on clay, nor anywhere else. You will take that however you like as an indicator going forward, but I still think your logic on this particular point is flawed. Now I suppose we've distracted the thread long enough with this particular debate, though any RG predictions thread can't be said to be actually hijacked by a side-bar on Rafa.

 

[don_fabio]

I sense that this edition of the French Open would be a memorable one.

I have a same feeling here. We hoped for a classic in a last year final, but Thiem didn't deliver what was expected of him. The highlight of last year tournament for me is the match between Nole and Cecchinato. That 4 set TB was a real thriller ending up on Italian side only to spark Nole come back where the beast woke up a few weeks later.

Schwartzman was shooting bullets on Nadal until that rain delay, but he never come back after with guns blazing.

RG from 2017 I don't even remember matches without looking into the results. So yeah, I hope this year will bring some breath taking tennis.

Just the other day I watched again that 2012 AO final and compared that Nadal with present one from AO 19. His defence skills really went down and some of you were pointing that out after this year AO final.

It does look like his defence ability could be the main weakness coming into this year RG (and the remaining of his career too), although this is less of an issue on clay compared to other surfaces, but I can't shake off the feeling that his defence is getting weaker each year. There are obviously some issues with form and confidence at the moment, but if/when all that comes together his defence skills could be a key to take him down in RG for someone like Thiem or Nole.

When it comes to Thiem I have a feeling that it would be better for him to end up in Nadal part of the draw. Their epic battle from last US open reminds me of some Stan-Nole 5 set matches until Stanimal found a way how to beat him. Same for Thiem-Nadal, I think the Dominator has all the abilities now and it is "just" about delivering great tennis on that particular day.

In Madrid/Rome (but I prefer Rome) would be good to see one Nole-Thiem match to get a sense of what we might see in RG. Although nowadays, after Nole already made his comeback, I have a feeling that he is holding back something on MS events as if he doesn't want to get tired mentally and is saving that for GS which he cleary said became his priority now. In any case this is clay and he needs to find his form before it is too late. I think in Rome he will probably go all in and that will tell us where he stands.

In addition to the guys winning RG without a warm up tourney win, maybe this could be that year again. This leaves us with Nole or Nadal at the moment.

 

[Moxie]

Alex Zverev has dropped to #4 behind Roger in the live rankings with his loss today. In Madrid, he'll be defending 1000 points (beat Thiem in the finals there,) and finalist points in Rome (L to Rafa.) He is currently about 480 points ahead of Thiem, who btw defends almost no points in Rome (lost R32 to the Fog.) On their current forms, there is a solid chance that Zverev will drop to #5 by RG, and Thiem rise to #4. This would make life rather much tougher on Zverev to the point of disastrous, and benefit Thiem, obviously. I think it will also benefit the top seeds, as they'd rather not see Thiem before SFs or F.

 

[El Dude]

Might not be a bad thing for Zverev in the long run. Sometimes you need to fall back to jump forward. He's been hanging out in a kind of "sub-elite" zone for a couple years, #4 in both 2017 and 2018, but doing terribly at Slams, at least relative to his performance at other tournaments. Maybe he was hoping it would just come to him and this downturn will inspire him to do the work necessary to take him to the next level - which is a Slam title and possibly #1 ranking.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Alex Zverev has dropped to #4 behind Roger in the live rankings with his loss today. In Madrid, he'll be defending 1000 points (beat Thiem in the finals there,) and finalist points in Rome (L to Rafa.) He is currently about 480 points ahead of Thiem, who btw defends almost no points in Rome (lost R32 to the Fog.) On their current forms, there is a solid chance that Zverev will drop to #5 by RG, and Thiem rise to #4. This would make life rather much tougher on Zverev to the point of disastrous, and benefit Thiem, obviously. I think it will also benefit the top seeds, as they'd rather not see Thiem before SFs or F.

Again, I would prefer that Thiem be ranked #5 provided he gets drawn in Ralph's quarter. Ralph being a confidence player is easier to take out in early stages than in later stages, especially at RG.

 

[Moxie]

Again, I would prefer that Thiem be ranked #5 provided he gets drawn in Ralph's quarter. Ralph being a confidence player is easier to take out in early stages than in later stages, especially at RG.

Sure, but you're gaming things you can't control. You're not going to be so happy about it if Roger should get Garin early, and have Thiem in his QF. Given Roger's chances, if I were his fan, I'd be hoping to put the dangers farther away. Plus, you discount the notion that Thiem would have to pass more hurdles to get to the final, and perhaps Rafa, should he be drawn on the other side.

 

[Moxie]

Might not be a bad thing for Zverev in the long run. Sometimes you need to fall back to jump forward. He's been hanging out in a kind of "sub-elite" zone for a couple years, #4 in both 2017 and 2018, but doing terribly at Slams, at least relative to his performance at other tournaments. Maybe he was hoping it would just come to him and this downturn will inspire him to do the work necessary to take him to the next level - which is a Slam title and possibly #1 ranking.

This presumes a kind of complacency on Zverev. I don't think so, as that discounts his ambition, which I think is really big. I don't think resting on his laurels is his problem. More likely some real basics (net game, for one,) and tactics. Along with fitness. He says he's working on it all. So maybe we start to learn his limitations, or he grows a bit more into his possibilities. Before too long we'll probably have a better idea. I still believe he has muscle to build, and stamina. If he learns to be a smarter player, too, then he'll be more formidable. In any case, I'm not convinced at losing early at RG is going to build more character for him. And dropping in rankings is not going to help his cause there.

 

[mrzz]

I was going to reply on @herios post on the Munich thread about seeding at RG -- he called attention to the fact that Berretini is almost making the cut, and checking the live rankings one can guess that end of the list might change considerably in two weeks -- given that I would need to change my list of dangerous low seeds and dangerous floaters.

So here is the part of the list I guess is subject to changes:


27 Alex de Minaur 1439
28 Gilles Simon 1385
29 Félix Auger-Aliassime 1319
30 Lucas Pouille 1315
31 Laslo Djere 1246
32 Stan Wawrinka 1230
33 Nick Kyrgios 1215
#####################
34 Matteo Berrettini 1215
35 Márton Fucsovics 1205
36 Frances Tiafoe 1185
37 Fernando Verdasco 1155
38 Richard Gasquet 1105
39 Cristian Garin 1083


I would say that the cut is on #33, rather than on #32 -- counting on one withdraw.

Bolded are the ones which I believe will change position (from up down or the other way around):

From the top, de Minaur is a good player but is coming back from injury. Pouille has a potentially vrey big game but is struggling heavily lately. I think he will roughly maintain his points but might be overtaken by others. Kyrgios hardly scores points on clay, maybe he can advance a few rounds in Madrid given the altitude.

From the bottom, Berrettini as Herios noted. Fucsovics I saw playing, he is kind of like Pouille, but stringing better results lately. And Garin, of course, he is further away but seems on a path much higher up than that.

I haven't cheked points to defend though, which might be the deciding factor here.

 

[herios]

Pouille plays this week the Challenger in Bordeaux.
He won today and made the final, advancing in the rankings one slot ahead of Felix.
Berrettini has the chance tomorrow to jump 3 slots if wins in the SF.
Garin is #38 now after his win today.

 

[El Dude]

This presumes a kind of complacency on Zverev. I don't think so, as that discounts his ambition, which I think is really big. I don't think resting on his laurels is his problem. More likely some real basics (net game, for one,) and tactics. Along with fitness. He says he's working on it all. So maybe we start to learn his limitations, or he grows a bit more into his possibilities. Before too long we'll probably have a better idea. I still believe he has muscle to build, and stamina. If he learns to be a smarter player, too, then he'll be more formidable. In any case, I'm not convinced at losing early at RG is going to build more character for him. And dropping in rankings is not going to help his cause there.

I have no idea what is going on behind the scenes, but while I agree with your assessment of his physical limitations and areas to improve on, there's got to be some mental aspect beyond just un-developed fundamentals. Maybe he's complacent about ironing out the details of this game, or maybe his ego is getting in the way.

 

[Moxie]

I have no idea what is going on behind the scenes, but while I agree with your assessment of his physical limitations and areas to improve on, there's got to be some mental aspect beyond just un-developed fundamentals. Maybe he's complacent about ironing out the details of this game, or maybe his ego is getting in the way.

It could be ego, as I think he has a big one. Resistant to making some changes? I don't know, either.

 

[don_fabio]

He showed his ego getting in the way on more than a few occasions, so I can't think of anything obvious apart that one.