Indian Wells, BNP Paribas Open, Masters 1000

[The_Grand_Slam]

the conventional wisdom is that clay is a more forgiving surface for the body. Isn't it ironic that both Delpo and Roger are avoiding clay on the grounds of protecting their bodies?

It's better for the body as injuries rarely due to that surface but due to the slowness of the surface players are forced to engage in longer matches which can cause fatigue and both Federer(old age) and Del Potro(injuries) have reasons to avoid that and getting gassed in the later part of the season where they have had much more success than on clay

 

[Federberg]

It's better for the body as injuries rarely due to that surface but due to the slowness of the surface players are forced to engage in longer matches which can cause fatigue and both Federer(old age) and Del Potro(injuries) have reasons to avoid that and getting gassed in the later part of the season where they have had much more success than on clay

yes I know, that's the irony

 

[Ricardo]

If by choking we mean that Roger lost match points due to his unforced errors then yesterday was the very definition of a choke. If it's taken away from you despite your being on match point that's a slightly different beast. Out of interest, a question to everyone, did Rafa choke in the AO final last year? I don't think he did, which would fit in with the narrow definition of choke I presented above..

Irrelevant, Rafa wasn’t anywhere near match point which the discussion is based on.

 

[isabelle]

soooo happy for my Juanito, he deserved to win and to be back at 6th, really great for him and for tennis in general

 

[Federberg]

Irrelevant, Rafa wasn’t anywhere near match point which the discussion is based on.

Mate I asked a question. I didn't say it was germane to the specific conversation. So your "irrelevant" is irrelevant. If you don't want to answer that's fine. All you have to do is button it

 

[atttomole]

Is Federer a choker? It seems that way with all the matches he should have won but lost like below, 1. Safin AO 05. 2. Nadal RG 07. 3. Nadal Wimbledon 08. 4. Nadal AO 09. 5. Djokovic USO 10. 6. Nadal RG 11. 7. Djokovic USO 11. 8. Murray AO13. 9. Djokovic Wimbledon 14. 10. Djokovic USO 15. 11. Raonic Wimbledon 16. 12. Potro IW 18.

You are a troll.

 

[the AntiPusher]

Good to see you around even if it's only because Roger finally wet the bed

You are priceless my friend.. Hey.. I just have been swamped at work and school lately. I haven’t seen to many matches since AO. I know Delp has been a pure nightmare for you and da Rog.. Roger still had a great tournament although he was pressed severely by Coric and a few tough 2 setters. He will be the favorite at Miami however I am surprised he has decided to play(I thought he said months ago that he was gonna skip it.) As for JMDP, I still have concerns about how much reserves Delpo has left to make it to the 2nd week of a slam. That crowd at IW is just awful..I got to give Delpo credit for holding it together.

 

[DarthFed]

You are priceless my friend.. Hey.. I just have been swamped at work and school lately. I haven’t seen to many matches since AO. I know Delp has been a pure nightmare for you and da Rog.. Roger still had a great tournament although he was pressed severely by Coric and a few tough 2 setters. He will be the favorite at Miami however I am surprised he has decided to play(I thought he said months ago that he was gonna skip it.) As for JMDP, I still have concerns about how much reserves Delpo has left to make it to the 2nd week of a slam. That crowd at IW is just awful..I got to give Delpo credit for holding it together.

DP isn't a nightmare with the H2H at 18-7 but clearly it should be even more in Roger's favor. He's coughed up 2 big ones vs DP now.

All around pretty bad week for Roger, quite an easy draw as expected and he didn't look that good for the most part. I hope Ivan will be back for Miami, something tells me he has been more valuable for Roger's last 15 months than many would think.

Roger needs to make the QF to retain #1 and after blowing the title at IW he may want to come back and tear up Miami, at least that's the hope.

 

[Moxie]

yes I know, that's the irony

In fairness, @brokenshoelace has argued that clay is tough on the body and Rafa shouldn't spend so much time on it. Precisely because it causes so much wear and tear.

 

[Moxie]

You have to separate out ones where he "choked/gagged" away a set vs the end of the match. If you're talking about the former I guarantee you it's a very long list for any notable player in history. But the latter is the "real choking" and to be honest Fed has probably done it a lot more than most. It's a crazy amount of matches he has lost from match points up. It tells us a couple things; he does feel the pressure closing out the big, close matches and it also tells us that he's difficult to beat convincingly. A lot of his wins are straightforward and a lot of his losses are nailbiters. So there are a couple ways to look at it but I don't think you can sugarcoat it too much, he's flat out choked some crazy matches away like yesterday. Hasn't kept him from being GOAT though and that tells us something.

I was wondering about a definition of "choke," since nadalgoat2 put up that list. Do you think it can always be called a choke just because you have a match point and don't win? What if a match is evenly contested. A MP is one point. I thought it was when you're nerves clearly get to you and you can't close out. (Roger did look very disconcerted yesterday, so you can call it a choke if you like.) I just mean, in general. I thought of it in broader terms, not so specific to a MP. I would have said you've choked when you were in a position to win, but then clearly beat yourself, mentally.

 

[the AntiPusher]

DP isn't a nightmare with the H2H at 18-7 but clearly it should be even more in Roger's favor. He's coughed up 2 big ones vs DP now.

All around pretty bad week for Roger, quite an easy draw as expected and he didn't look that good for the most part. I hope Ivan will be back for Miami, something tells me he has been more valuable for Roger's last 15 months than many would think.

Roger needs to make the QF to retain #1 and after blowing the title at IW he may want to come back and tear up Miami, at least that's the hope.

I would disagree.. Delpo has posted some legendary kills over TMF.. However if you want to look at the H2H so be it

 

[Federberg]

I was wondering about a definition of "choke," since nadalgoat2 put up that list. Do you think it can always be called a choke just because you have a match point and don't win? What if a match is evenly contested. A MP is one point. I thought it was when you're nerves clearly get to you and you can't close out. (Roger did look very disconcerted yesterday, so you can call it a choke if you like.) I just mean, in general. I thought of it in broader terms, not so specific to a MP. I would have said you've choked when you were in a position to win, but then clearly beat yourself, mentally.

I do agree with you. It's hard to call yesterday a choke once the taste of bile wears off. At a certain point a person has proven themselves enough that pejoratives like choke shouldn't even be a part of the language for them. I think Roger is a victim of his variety in some ways. He can kill you in so many ways, when he messes up execution he'll look worse than Rafa or Novak who are more likely to be going for a more conventional shot. We can't on the one hand admit he wasn't playing his best, and blame his poor execution on nerves.

 

[DarthFed]

I would disagree.. Delpo has posted some legendary kills over TMF.. However if you want to look at the H2H so be it

Bro, it is 5-2 at slams and 7-1 in MS events. Obviously DP has clipped him in some big matches, id say they have had 8 big matches if you include GS QF's and the Olympic semifinal and it is 5-3 Fed. He is a tough opponent and I loved the way he played yesterday because it looked A LOT like 2009, but no need to elevate this into something it's not.

 

[DarthFed]

I was wondering about a definition of "choke," since nadalgoat2 put up that list. Do you think it can always be called a choke just because you have a match point and don't win? What if a match is evenly contested. A MP is one point. I thought it was when you're nerves clearly get to you and you can't close out. (Roger did look very disconcerted yesterday, so you can call it a choke if you like.) I just mean, in general. I thought of it in broader terms, not so specific to a MP. I would have said you've choked when you were in a position to win, but then clearly beat yourself, mentally.

Generally if you serve for the match and get broken it is a choke unless the opponent totally swung from the hip and blasted winners even with the server getting a lot of first serves in. Roger double faulted yesterday at 5-4 and missed a lot of first serves and had a couple other errors. That's a choke IMO because he had played pretty well the last set and a half and didn't have a service game anywhere near that bad.

Most of the time if you get multiple match points and lose it is a choke especially if it's on your serve. Djoker in 2011 was 2 points on serve, one was a huge return winner on a poor first serve and the other was a short-ball UFE off a great first serve. Fed then DF'ed and barely won a point in the last 2 games of the match. If you don't think that's choking then clearly nothing in tennis is to you.

 

[the AntiPusher]

I do agree with you. It's hard to call yesterday a choke once the taste of bile wears off. At a certain point a person has proven themselves enough that pejoratives like choke shouldn't even be a part of the language for them. I think Roger is a victim of his variety in some ways. He can kill you in so many ways, when he messes up execution he'll look worse than Rafa or Novak who are more likely to be going for a more conventional shot. We can't on the one hand admit he wasn't playing his best, and blame his poor execution on nerves.

"If it Bleeds then We can Kill it" ... its just the law of averages..Fed cant win every damn thing but only just on 93% of them..LOL

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Generally if you serve for the match and get broken it is a choke unless the opponent totally swung from the hip and blasted winners even with the server getting a lot of first serves in. Roger double faulted yesterday at 5-4 and missed a lot of first serves and had a couple other errors. That's a choke IMO because he had played pretty well the last set and a half and didn't have a service game anywhere near that bad.

Most of the time if you get multiple match points and lose it is a choke especially if it's on your serve. Djoker in 2011 was 2 points on serve, one was a huge return winner on a poor first serve and the other was a short-ball UFE off a great first serve. Fed then DF'ed and barely won a point in the last 2 games of the match. If you don't think that's choking then clearly nothing in tennis is to you.

I would certainly say Fed choked yesterday. Even more than the notorious game where he served for the match, he choked big time in the TB. He could not get a single first serve in TB and he double faulted twice in TB. His final TB is a greater choke than the notorious game.

With respect to Novak hitting a huge return winner, I would not call that point a choke. Novak went for the fences with a wild guess on the serve and it clicked. That is not a choke.

 

[Moxie]

Generally if you serve for the match and get broken it is a choke unless the opponent totally swung from the hip and blasted winners even with the server getting a lot of first serves in. Roger double faulted yesterday at 5-4 and missed a lot of first serves and had a couple other errors. That's a choke IMO because he had played pretty well the last set and a half and didn't have a service game anywhere near that bad.

Most of the time if you get multiple match points and lose it is a choke especially if it's on your serve. Djoker in 2011 was 2 points on serve, one was a huge return winner on a poor first serve and the other was a short-ball UFE off a great first serve. Fed then DF'ed and barely won a point in the last 2 games of the match. If you don't think that's choking then clearly nothing in tennis is to you.

Oh, I do agree that 2011 was a choke. And there was some "choke" in yesterday. I was really asking more generally about how we define it. And I wouldn't agree with all of that list, but I would agree with some. I didn't want to dignify it with a response, since I thought it was intended to be mean-spirited, not especially a conversation. Or anyway, poorly-timed.

 

[Moxie]

I would certainly say Fed choked yesterday. Even more than the notorious game where he served for the match, he choked big time in the TB. He could not get a single first serve in TB and he double faulted twice in TB. His final TB is a greater choke than the notorious game.

With respect to Novak hitting a huge return winner, I would not call that point a choke. Novak went for the fences with a wild guess on the serve and it clicked. That is not a choke.

I agree that you're not "choking" when the opponent hits a winner, esp. to save MP. I think Darth was talking about how the match finished, and in that case, I would say it was a choke.

 

[DarthFed]

The only surprise after the game Fed got broken in was that he held at 5-6. He continued the choking in the TB after a strangely good service game. TB and his play from 40-15 up was all a disaster.

 

[DarthFed]

I would certainly say Fed choked yesterday. Even more than the notorious game where he served for the match, he choked big time in the TB. He could not get a single first serve in TB and he double faulted twice in TB. His final TB is a greater choke than the notorious game.

With respect to Novak hitting a huge return winner, I would not call that point a choke. Novak went for the fences with a wild guess on the serve and it clicked. That is not a choke.

The first point wasn't a choke but it was kind of arrogance or just letting your guard down as that was barely over 100 MPH and wasn't wide enough. But the "choke" came from the 2nd MP on in that match.