How to win against Rafa --- The tale of two Swiss Blokes

[GameSetAndMath]

Here is a link.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/wimbledon09/columns/story?id=4280346

 

[Kieran]

I don't know why you people think I am taking cheap shots. I don't have any hatred
towards Rafa nor I am fanatic about Federer.

Go on, you can admit it, I won't tell a soul. :lolz:

Fact is, you're one of those guys who spreads myths and then turns tail when asked to back it up. Like the whopper you keep repeating about Rafa fans saying that he would definitely have won against Stan if his back hadn't given up. Nobody even came close to saying that, but you repeated it again in this thread, and you'll repeat it again in the future.

And you'll never present a shred of evidence, because there is none.

And here you are gratuitously bringing up the abdomen, to fortify another myth. :nono

Anyway, keeping you on topic, you made a revealing comment here (remarkably, restraining yourself from stretching into another Rafa-swipe fantasy riff):

2. As I already mentioned in my other post, all the points mentioned in that article
would certainly help in beating Rafa. Whether, they would be particularly suitable
for Roger to use them is another story. As I said before, the train has left the
station for Roger to cope up with point #1 (holding up in BH rallies). Without
fixing #1, difficult to be disciplined with point #2 (coming to net at right times only).
But, Roger could possibly use points #3 (wide sliced backhand) and
#4 (changing up return positions).

If the article isn't useful to Roger, why didn't you reveal your thoughts on this earlier? The ridiculousness of holding a single set up as an example to a man who's fixed in the firmament and has beaten Rafa ten times, is what really derailed your thread. It was dishonest of the article and you should have twigged that in your OP.

What about the question of why Roger has never been able to impose his game on Rafa? That's what it's all about, at the end of the day. That's why the H2H is so slanted...

 

[Front242]

Another reason it's so slanted is a good portion of Fed's losses have come years after his prime while Rafa was, and going by last year, pretty much still is in his prime. Easy to overlook too and many of his fans conveniently choose to overlook this. It's all selective at the end of the day. Frankly, you'd expect a 32 year old in tennis to lose to a 27 year old all things being equal. That's just the way it goes. For example, you don't see Hewitt or Haas beating every younger player they play either.

 

[Kieran]

That's a good point, Front, but let's be clear: you'd expect Roger in his prime to dismiss a youngster more often than not, even on clay. But as a 17 year old, Rafa beat Roger on hards, and almost repeated the feat as an 18 year old. Roger has never gotten to grips with him at all, and has failed to impose his own strengths on Rafa through the years.

Would you agree?

 

[Front242]

That's a good point, Front, but let's be clear: you'd expect Roger in his prime to dismiss a youngster more often than not, even on clay. But as a 17 year old, Rafa beat Roger on hards, and almost repeated the feat as an 18 year old. Roger has never gotten to grips with him at all, and has failed to impose his own strengths on Rafa through the years.

Would you agree?

I'm not dismissing the obvious fact that he's had a hard time playing against him since day one but just saying, a large proportion of the losses have come when Fed has been well out his prime while Rafa was/is in his and maybe if they were both in their primes he'd have won a good deal more, especially at smaller best of 3 events which in itself would make the h2h look a lot better than it does.

Fact is, as long as they both keep playing it's going to look worse for Fed as he's gonna be 33 in a few months so the chances of him winning many/any more against Rafa are pretty slim now and that's just the way it goes with primes and differing ages in sports. Of course you see tons of morons on tennis boards, especially the hardcore fans on tennis.com's comments sections on news articles citing this and that about h2h while as I mentioned above, conveniently disregarding both the age difference in primes and just general age/mileage of both players. They choose to see what they want to see at the end of the day. Numbers of wins/losses, not how and when they were achieved relative to each player's primes.

 

[Kieran]

In Federer's prime, he was down 6-1 in the H2H.

The point of this article in the OP is to suggest how he could have done better. My view is that from the very beginning, the pattern emerged, and Roger didn't impose himself on Rafa, even when Roger was prime and Rafa was developing.

What could he have done to change this? And what can he do in the future?

 

[Front242]

In Federer's prime, he was down 6-1 in the H2H.

The point of this article in the OP is to suggest how he could have done better. My view is that from the very beginning, the pattern emerged, and Roger didn't impose himself on Rafa, even when Roger was prime and Rafa was developing.

What could he have done to change this? And what can he do in the future?

What can he do in the future? Frankly nothing at this stage. Bring him back to 2007-2009 and mess around with some ideas and work on improving his BH and he mightn't have lost so many even in mickey mouse best of 3 events since then but too late now to turn things around imo. He left it too late.

 

[Front242]

He could serve better for one thing I guess. We saw how well he played in Cincy last year and yet the one muck service game he played lost him the match. So that's a key area.

Edited to show the importance of serve 'cos his serving was poor in their last AO match to say the least. He didn't even win a set and he can surely do that much. Disappointing is an understatement but they all age and deteriorate.

 

[Kieran]

He could serve better for one thing I guess. We saw how well he played in Cincy last year and yet the one muck service game he played lost him the match. So that's a key area.

I think the serve out wide to the backhand in the deuce court has always reaped benefits against Rafa. Very rarely see him handle that one. Nole swings it out well, too. This is the thing, if Roger looked after his service games, that's a huge plus, and in general, he's strong here.

I think according to the article, we can nix the grinder suggestion, and having more patience about coming to the net. GSM also agrees, so we have a quorum. But what about the backhand? And the return? How can Roger apply himself more there? Surely the key is a more assertive DTL backhand (as opposed to a high-risk crosscourt slice), and also, try taking Rafa's time away a bit more?

 

[Front242]

I still haven't bothered to read the article because when I saw the mere mention of grinding I just laughed. No 32 year old soon to be 33 can possibly out grind a guy 5 years younger and still playing at a very high level unless he's consuming the biggest cocktail of PEDs known to man, so scrap that one.

Yup, DTL BH as you say is a good shot he needs to work on and one he was better at before and needs to get back in his game but he'll never have a BH like Stan Wawrinka at this stage. He lacks the upper body strength for one thing to hit it that hard. Winning his own service games is obviously the biggest key though as his whole game goes to pieces when he starts mucking up his own service games, not to mention it usually means you're behind in the match.

 

[brokenshoelace]

I still haven't bothered to read the article because when I saw the mere mention of grinding I just laughed. No 32 year old soon to be 33 can possibly out grind a guy 5 years younger and still playing at a very high level unless he's consuming the biggest cocktail of PEDs known to man, so scrap that one.

I don't want to come off like an asshole, but yeah, exactly this. The moment I read grinding I decided to pass. Don't get me wrong, the article may raise other good points, but I think the notion of Federer having to grind against Nadal is so ridiculous that it negates anything else.

Plus, to be honest, and I'm not saying it to rub the losses in, but at this point, I find the talk of "what Federer needs to do against Nadal" EXTREEEEEEMELY tiresome. As in, it's literally become one of my least favorite topics in tennis. Think about it: it has been discussed since 2006. That's 8 years. EIGHT full years. Maybe it's about time we give up. I'm not saying there is nothing Federer could have done. I'm just saying that ship has sailed. He might beat Nadal again. Hell, he probably will, if they play enough times (he's done it 10 times already). But I don't think it's going to be due to some revolutionary strategy that will change the dynamics of the match-up. We've been through that road. He probably would need to be a bit more "free," loose, serve well, execute, etc... But I don't think it's some blueprint. He doesn't have the weapons for that in this particular match-up. Not at this stage in his career anyway.

 

[Front242]

Yup, it's been tiresome for years now and Fed left it way too late to execute some incredible winning strategy. At this stage a match where he serves well and has no let up is probably his only shot at another win and it'll definitely be limited to best of 3, especially when he failed to win a single set since Cincy. Said match in Cincy 2013 if he had managed to not mess up that service game at 4-4 in the 2nd set could've been one he had good chances to win.

Of course serving well for a whole match against Rafa isn't something he does too often these days so I'm not holding my breath! And coupling that with no let ups is even rarer!

PS: the incredible winning strategy is simple: serve brilliantly every time they play each other, execute monster forehands from all over the court, don't mess up easy volleys, don't get pinned in the left of the court hitting shoulder height backhands and finally never have any let up in all the above. Frankly, I wonder why he wasn't able to think of/execute that before! Doesn't sound that hard to do

 

[DarthFed]

The ship has sailed. It isn't just the matchup problem now. The fact of the matter is Roger just isn't that good anymore and aside from the first 7 months of 2012 he hasn't had any sustained run of great play since winning AO in 2010. And to me it was after AO 2010 that Rafa just became the much better player between the two. Some will say 08 and 09 but that is very debatable. It was a game where Roger was guaranteed to beat everyone but Rafa while Rafa would beat Roger but was no guarantee to reach the final except at RG.

In a way you can criticize Roger's strategy/mind/toughness more for matches like Wimby 08, AO 09 and 12 (when Roger came in on a roll), RG 06 & 07, etc when they were on more even grounds yet Roger still lost all those too.

 

[brokenshoelace]

The ship has sailed. It isn't just the matchup problem now. The fact of the matter is Roger just isn't that good anymore and aside from the first 7 months of 2012 he hasn't had any sustained run of great play since winning AO in 2010. And to me it was after AO 2010 that Rafa just became the much better player between the two. Some will say 08 and 09 but that is very debatable. It was a game where Roger was guaranteed to beat everyone but Rafa while Rafa would beat Roger but was no guarantee to reach the final except at RG.

In a way you can criticize Roger's strategy/mind/toughness more for matches like Wimby 08, AO 09 and 12 (when Roger came in on a roll), RG 06 & 07, etc when they were on more even grounds yet Roger still lost all those too.

Nadal has generally been the better player since 2008, with the exception of his injury/post injury stretches. He was definitely the better player throughout 2008 and the first half of 2009 (I don't think that's debatable. He had better overall results and beat Fed 5 straight times). Of course Fed was better in the second half of 2009, while Nadal was putrid following his return from injury. And then there's that 2012 stretch you alluded to, when Fed became world number 1 and Nadal was sidelined. To be clear, I'm not saying one was a result of the other. I'm just pointing out the obvious. So yeah, I'd say on average, Nadal has definitely been the better player since 2008, and it makes sense. That's when he hit his peak and Fed started to wander off from his.

 

[DarthFed]

The ship has sailed. It isn't just the matchup problem now. The fact of the matter is Roger just isn't that good anymore and aside from the first 7 months of 2012 he hasn't had any sustained run of great play since winning AO in 2010. And to me it was after AO 2010 that Rafa just became the much better player between the two. Some will say 08 and 09 but that is very debatable. It was a game where Roger was guaranteed to beat everyone but Rafa while Rafa would beat Roger but was no guarantee to reach the final except at RG.

In a way you can criticize Roger's strategy/mind/toughness more for matches like Wimby 08, AO 09 and 12 (when Roger came in on a roll), RG 06 & 07, etc when they were on more even grounds yet Roger still lost all those too.

Nadal has generally been the better player since 2008, with the exception of his injury/post injury stretches. He was definitely the better player throughout 2008 and the first half of 2009 (I don't think that's debatable. He had better overall results and beat Fed 5 straight times). Of course Fed was better in the second half of 2009, while Nadal was putrid following his return from injury. And then there's that 2012 stretch you alluded to, when Fed became world number 1 and Nadal was sidelined. To be clear, I'm not saying one was a result of the other. I'm just pointing out the obvious. So yeah, I'd say on average, Nadal has definitely been the better player since 2008, and it makes sense. That's when he hit his peak and Fed started to wander off from his.

There were 10 huge tournaments from start of 08 - Australian 2010 (9 majors and the Olympics) and each won 4. Roger made the finals of 4 others while Nadal made 3 semis and 1 QF.

The conclusion is that Roger was still better vs. the field until after AO 2010 in the ones that mattered most while Roger by 2008 had become the automatic win for Rafa. Rafa also did better in the smaller events so it is pretty close between them. Of course the typical Rafa injury points could come into play but you don't get credit for grinding yourself into tendinitis.

 

[Front242]

Loved that last line but it is so true.

 

[Kieran]

Loved that last line but it is so true.

Oh, I know you love it! Rafa gets injured and Fedfans go, "ker-ching!"

(Let's have a Fedal brawl! :snigger :laydownlaughing It's been ages since we had one :snigger )

 

[Front242]

Loved that last line but it is so true.

Oh, I know you love it! Rafa gets injured and Fedfans go, "ker-ching!"

(Let's have a Fedal brawl! :snigger :laydownlaughing It's been ages since we had one :snigger )

No, you took that up wrong. I don't actually like seeing any player injured but it was amusingly written is all.

 

[Kieran]

Loved that last line but it is so true.

Oh, I know you love it! Rafa gets injured and Fedfans go, "ker-ching!"

(Let's have a Fedal brawl! :snigger :laydownlaughing It's been ages since we had one :snigger )

No, you took that up wrong. I don't actually like seeing any player injured but it was amusingly written is all.

I'm only kidding ya! But it has been ages since we had a Fedal turf war. At least a week - or even less!

But I'd like Darth to say why he things that "Roger by 2008 had become the automatic win for Rafa..."

 

[Front242]

Loved that last line but it is so true.

Oh, I know you love it! Rafa gets injured and Fedfans go, "ker-ching!"

(Let's have a Fedal brawl! :snigger :laydownlaughing It's been ages since we had one :snigger )

No, you took that up wrong. I don't actually like seeing any player injured but it was amusingly written is all.

I'm only kidding ya! But it has been ages since we had a Fedal turf war. At least a week - or even less!

But I'd like Darth to say why he things that "Roger by 2008 had become the automatic win for Rafa..."

Imagine since up until that point Roger still had the upper hand on his most dominant surface at the time (grass) while Rafa had his on clay and Rafa had been getting closer each year at Wimbledon and finally beat him on his favourite surface. From there on out it very much shook up Fed's confidence. Something like that I'd hazard a guess.