Nadal played that match very well. His drop shot was top drawer, and he was able to win rallies that he seemed to be losing. In spite of that performance, the match was still even to me. They both had to fight off break points several times, so I wouldn't say that the match was there for the taking for Nadal.
I’d love to know what the “humble” (lol) federists would say if Roger would have beaten Nadal in a RG final.....
Djokovic still looked rough and less than fully confident. Nadal should have shut him down in the 4th. Obviously, it ended up being a big fight, and it didn't help that the whole match was played with the roof closed. But Rafa let it slip away, I do feel.
This is revisionist history. Roger "couldn't beat a fly" at Wimbledon in 2008? Except that he beat everyone in his path in straights until the final. If he'd been that lame, surely Hewitt or Safin would have picked him off. And like it or not, the H2H started with Rafa beating him on a HC. You fling "geriatric" around about Roger, but "barely at top 10 player?" You can look up his actual rank in those wins. The late career wins over Rafa prove less about Roger "could" have done earlier, and more about Rafa's diminished movement. Like it or not, if Roger could have solved Rafa earlier, he would have. What are you thinking: that he was too proud or too lazy? I remembered he imported a few lefties to Dubai to practice with him in the off-season over the years. It's not like he didn't try.
Roger was a barely top 10 player in 2013 when he dished out 4 easy wins to Nadal on HC. Roger didn't even beat him at YEC where anyone and everyone beats Ralph.
I knew you'd make crap out of Safin and Hewitt, but they are both Slam winners, and you'd tried to say that Roger couldn't beat a gnat that year. Hewitt actually beat Roger in Halle two years later, so he wasn't totally washed up. (In fairness, that was a surprise.) But, seriously: he didn't play "nobodies," if he was so crap.Wow, he beat washed up Safin and Hewitt. What fine form he was in that year
Yeah the wins last year had nothing to do with Roger actually hitting through his backhand and attacking Nadal's weak serves. Or the fact he didn't mentally fold in tight moments like the past. You can talk movement, I will talk about Roger underachieving badly against a guy he should've handled easily off clay.
I'd love to see how much you were making out of Roger's draw that year, with Hewitt and Safin in. You snear at them now. You're they guy that made a lot of Berdych in Roger's draw in the AO 2017, even when it was clear he was waning, which has been proven. You really move the relative importance of opponents as it suits you.
Yes, his winning over Nadal at 35 was rather pathetic, because he needed a reduced Nadal, but it was something. Obviously, not doing better in the early years was poor. They played a lot on clay, but not exclusively, and the wins at Majors on 3 surfaces meant something. You can talk about Nadal's "limited" grass results, but you don't look at 2008 when you say that. He won a good final v. Djokovic at Queens, and he followed up a Wimbledon final in '07 when he could have been said to have blown his chances, to finally win it in '08. You seem to forget how close Roger was to losing W in '07 to Nadal, which is a year you still claim as his prime.
You pretend that Rafa only gets measured by Roger. You hate that Fed gets compared with Rafa, but by the same token, Nadal's career isn't only assessed via Roger's. By any qualitative analysis, Rafa has been plenty good off of clay. No clay specialist has ever had his resume off of clay, and very few non-clay players have, either. Stop trying to making it all about the clay. Nadal is better than almost everyone else has been in the history of the game. And it's not because Roger wet the bed. Rafa made him wet the bed.
Funny how you ignore the early wins, and call 2008 a "poor year." It's not such a "fickle" stat, so much as one that reflects poorly on Roger, no matter how his fans keep trying to shape-shift it in different ways, or make it unimportant. Yet you say that "Nadal barely played him in his out of form years." I thought you just mentioned 2. I could also mention dates when Federer didn't show up, but for one round, and not on clay. This is just excuse-making for that H2H that doesn't mean so much, except that you guys keep massaging it and remaking it over and over.
