OK, Rafapologists, what's the excuse this time?

[Front242]

Ferret and the usual Spanish armada will play there too for sure but he (Ferret) won't beat Nadal twice in clay season I'd imagine. Once in 10 years was quite an achievement.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

still..rafa/wafa has a nice cosy atp500 clay tourney in sunny Barcelona to cheer himself up on.

bound to win that one surely ?..who else is playing ? prob a load of lower ranked dirtball dweebs.

Here are the top 8 seeds in Barcelona: Rafa, Ferrer, Fog, Robredo, Almagro, Nishikori,
Gulbis, forgot the other one.

 

[golds girl]

Not a complete walk-in-the-park. Ferrer's achievement might inspire one of those others

 

[Moxie]

Very unfair poll, sir! I shoulda been allowed to tick all options, since all applied today...

The last one is for you, my friend.

But no one voted! Too soon for humor? Is the wound too raw?

I don't think it's too soon for humor if it's humorous. One option for the Nadal fans would have made it funnier. Otherwise, it just seems like the same kind of poke that everyone makes at us about "excuse making." I actually thought it was unkind.

As to whether the wound is too raw? Naw. It's a tennis match, and sometimes your guy loses. After RG 2009, which, TBH, felt like someone died, the rest are just…dust yourself off, and look to the next tournament. I suspect some of my Fed fan friends know what I'm talking about. Once you get that they're not invincible, even when they have seemed so, it gets easier to ride the wave.

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

still..rafa/wafa has a nice cosy atp500 clay tourney in sunny Barcelona to cheer himself up on.

bound to win that one surely ?..who else is playing ? prob a load of lower ranked dirtball dweebs.

Here are the top 8 seeds in Barcelona: Rafa, Ferrer, Fog, Robredo, Almagro, Nishikori,
Gulbis, forgot the other one.

decent line up. :idea: better than I thought it would be seeing as its stuck between 3 clay masters.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

still..rafa/wafa has a nice cosy atp500 clay tourney in sunny Barcelona to cheer himself up on.

bound to win that one surely ?..who else is playing ? prob a load of lower ranked dirtball dweebs.

Here are the top 8 seeds in Barcelona: Rafa, Ferrer, Fog, Robredo, Almagro, Nishikori,
Gulbis, forgot the other one.

decent line up. :idea: better than I thought it would be seeing as its stuck between 3 clay masters.

The field was expected to be stronger than this at the beginning. Raonic, Wawrinka,
Dimitrov all dropped from it one by one.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Ferret and the usual Spanish armada will play there too for sure but he (Ferret) won't beat Nadal twice in clay season I'd imagine. Once in 10 years was quite an achievement.

Ferrer being #2 seed there, they can only meet in the finals. I think they
probablt won't meet in Barcelona.

 

[Kieran]

Very unfair poll, sir! I shoulda been allowed to tick all options, since all applied today...

The last one is for you, my friend.

But no one voted! Too soon for humor? Is the wound too raw?

To be honest, there's no wound at all. After Oz, I was dopey and stunned for a month, couldn't believe he gets Stan in the final and his back goes. :nono That one left me reeling.

But Rafa isn't playing well so this result isn't a shock. However - if he loses in Barcelona, I'm calling a crisis meeting and I want Clay Death and all the experts to be there!

 

[brokenshoelace]

i go with the second, he played poorly but no distraction..... no need to add salt to injury. Pretty sure Rafa's best on clay is behind him, and i mean it career-wise. He has not played THAT well for the last 3 years, don't think he has much more to give anymore.

I am not so sure of that though.

In the main Monte Carlo thread I posted the complete list of losses of Rafa on Clay.
As of today, his record on clay is 300-22. Of the 22 losses, 10 were in the period
2002-2004 when Rafa was a baby and has not even won a GS.

In the five year period 2005-2009, Rafa had exactly 6 losses (to Fed twice and
to Soderling, Ferrero, Gaudio and Andreev once each).

In the next five year period 2010-2014 (agrred that 2014 is not over yet), Rafa
had exactly 6 losses (to Novak thrice and to Zeballos, Verdasco and Ferrer once each).
I don't see a decline here in the first place, to be worried or to make dramatic
statements such as his best on clay is over.

However, there is one trend though. Even though he is winning as much as
he used to win, he probably is not demolishing people as badly as he used to.
In particular, even though Rafa won Rio, I think he played crappy in that
whole tournament (not just one isolated match).

But, I do think he may have three losses in this clay season. Now that
he lost MC, he will definitely play Barcelona and not skip it. He will win it.
He will probably lose Madrid and FO this year. If that happens, 2014 would
be his first 3-loss clay season since 2004. But, I think we should wait
at least for that to happen before making statements such as Rafa's
best on clay is behind him.

...or we can just watch his game for the past few years and notice that it's not as good as it used to be on clay, regardless of results.

 

[brokenshoelace]

And what a silly, pointless thread. Surprising considering it's coming from a good poster.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Very unfair poll, sir! I shoulda been allowed to tick all options, since all applied today...

The last one is for you, my friend.

But no one voted! Too soon for humor? Is the wound too raw?

I think we all just found it kinda lame. And no, it has nothing to do with being a Nadal fan. It's just that it's unfunny, uncreative (seriously, the same joke has been made after every loss since 2008. Get original, people), and that same "joke" could have been made in the Monte Carlo thread instead of creating a whole thread about it for no reason really.

But, just because this whole thread fell pretty flat and the actual funny bits in it came from two replies (Kieran and nehmeth), as opposed to thread premise itself, I'll attempt to at least make it only partially useless by posting the following (which I have already posted in a different thread when someone made the same lame joke):

"Asked if a back problem was responsible for his under-par performance, he replied: 'No, no, the back is not an excuse.'

'No, the back is in good shape. The physical performance is fine. No problem about that.'"

https://eurosport.yahoo.com/news/tennis-nadal-admits-lack-confidence-144614383--ten.html

There, that should answer your question.

 

[brokenshoelace]

So, we surely cannot say Rafa's best on clay is behind him until
he at least manages to lose three matches on clay in the same year [Since, you
seem to be weak in logic, I must also mention that this does not mean that we can
say his best on clay is behind him just because he had an year with three losses].

"Since you seem to be weak in logic"

If you're going to take cheap shots like that, do not proceed to immediately employ Luxilon Borg levels of flawed logic in the very same post.

Nadal's level on clay has been on a decline for a while, and pretty much all of our resident "experts" on the boards have said as much. You only need to watch his game to be able to determine, instead of short-shortsightedly looking at the amounts of losses he's had.

The biggest problem we have with people attempting to make these sort of arguments is that they either lack the ability to understand what's going on with someone's game or just don't bother watching closely.

 

[TsarMatt]

OK, Rafapologists, what's the excuse this time?

He lost. It happens.

 

[Tennis Miller]

still..rafa/wafa has a nice cosy atp500 clay tourney in sunny Barcelona to cheer himself up on.

bound to win that one surely ?..who else is playing ? prob a load of lower ranked dirtball dweebs.

Here are the top 8 seeds in Barcelona: Rafa, Ferrer, Fog, Robredo, Almagro, Nishikori,
Gulbis, forgot the other one.

decent line up. :idea: better than I thought it would be seeing as its stuck between 3 clay masters.

Ceci n'est pas un defaite. C'est un deliberation d'un defaite, Magritte.

Cheers
TM

 

[GameSetAndMath]

So, we surely cannot say Rafa's best on clay is behind him until
he at least manages to lose three matches on clay in the same year [Since, you
seem to be weak in logic, I must also mention that this does not mean that we can
say his best on clay is behind him just because he had an year with three losses].

"Since you seem to be weak in logic"

If you're going to take cheap shots like that, do not proceed to immediately employ Luxilon Borg levels of flawed logic in the very same post.

Nadal's level on clay has been on a decline for a while, and pretty much all of our resident "experts" on the boards have said as much. You only need to watch his game to be able to determine, instead of short-shortsightedly looking at the amounts of losses he's had.

The biggest problem we have with people attempting to make these sort of arguments is that they either lack the ability to understand what's going on with someone's game or just don't bother watching closely.

Oh, yeah. Some resident experts who closely watch Nadal's matches also said
"it will be another day at office" for Rafa on most clay matches as recently as
couple of days ago.

 

[brokenshoelace]

So, we surely cannot say Rafa's best on clay is behind him until
he at least manages to lose three matches on clay in the same year [Since, you
seem to be weak in logic, I must also mention that this does not mean that we can
say his best on clay is behind him just because he had an year with three losses].

"Since you seem to be weak in logic"

If you're going to take cheap shots like that, do not proceed to immediately employ Luxilon Borg levels of flawed logic in the very same post.

Nadal's level on clay has been on a decline for a while, and pretty much all of our resident "experts" on the boards have said as much. You only need to watch his game to be able to determine, instead of short-shortsightedly looking at the amounts of losses he's had.

The biggest problem we have with people attempting to make these sort of arguments is that they either lack the ability to understand what's going on with someone's game or just don't bother watching closely.

Oh, yeah. Some resident experts who closely watch Nadal's matches also said
"it will be another day at office" for Rafa on most clay matches as recently as
couple of days ago.

I said that in reference to the Wawrinka match that didn't happen (which is a different match-up. And I maintain that any version of Rafa trumps Stan on clay due to superior movement and the one handed backhand issue. Again, different match-up on this surface). Not the Ferrer match. In fact, at the beginning of the Ferrer match, I said something along the lines of "don't expect Rafa to cruise" and that Ferrer will make him work.

But I'm sure you, as a tennis genius, predicted Ferrer would beat Rafa, right?

Also, what the hell does a wrong prediction have to do with objectively watching a player's game for years and analyzing it accordingly, based on what WE HAVE SEEN?

So if I tell you that Rafa's game on clay has regressed (but he's still the best on the surface) because he doesn't move as well as he used to, and isn't the same physical beast, your rebuttal would be: "You falsely predicted that Nadal would beat Stan in a match that didn't end up materializing!"

Yeah, nice logic there. Completely relevant. And to think that you were calling moxie out for logic earlier.

 

[brokenshoelace]

By the way, GSM, here's my "another day at the office quote":

"Under any other circumstances, Nadal vs. Wawrinka on clay would be looked at as just another day at the office for Nadal on his way to another final."

So, clearly, you can see that I was talking about a Nadal/Wawrinka match on clay, and the perception surrounding it, not the Nadal/Ferrer match yesterday.

Congratulations, not only did you invoke a completely irrelevant argument, but you fabricated one by putting words in my mouth. Mastoor's return must have inspired you...

 

[GameSetAndMath]

By the way, GSM, here's my "another day at the office quote":

"Under any other circumstances, Nadal vs. Wawrinka on clay would be looked at as just another day at the office for Nadal on his way to another final."

So, clearly, you can see that I was talking about a Nadal/Wawrinka match on clay, and the perception surrounding it, not the Nadal/Ferrer match yesterday.

Congratulations, not only did you invoke a completely irrelevant argument, but you fabricated one by putting words in my mouth. Mastoor's return must have inspired you...

The bolded part clearly imply that you think Nadal wins most of his matches on clay easily
even these days. I was the one who said "Even though Nadal won Rio, it raises more
questions than answers" as his play there was crappy.

 

[brokenshoelace]

By the way, GSM, here's my "another day at the office quote":

"Under any other circumstances, Nadal vs. Wawrinka on clay would be looked at as just another day at the office for Nadal on his way to another final."

So, clearly, you can see that I was talking about a Nadal/Wawrinka match on clay, and the perception surrounding it, not the Nadal/Ferrer match yesterday.

Congratulations, not only did you invoke a completely irrelevant argument, but you fabricated one by putting words in my mouth. Mastoor's return must have inspired you...

The bolded part clearly imply that you think Nadal wins most of his matches on clay easily
even these days. I was the one who said "Even though Nadal won Rio, it raises more
questions than answers" as his play there was crappy.

Yes, and I still maintain that Nadal wins most of his clay matches easily, even these days. Or do you care to put your money where your mouth is and actually predict that he's going to struggle in most of his clay matches?

Also, you must have missed the part where I've been harping all year long that Nadal is not playing well. Or did I fabricate this? I'll gladly dig up my quotes, but I'm sure you've read them already.

Now, the more important question is: How does any of that have to do with assessments regarding where Nadal's clay game was in 06-10, and where it is now? How does a prediction for the future have anything to do with that? Do you really not see how the argument is irrelevant?

For instance, instead of looking up results (and we all know how great Rafa's results have been on clay, so nobody's disputing that he's still great on the surface), can you please give me your take on where his game stands and has stood for the past couple of years, compared to where it was in say, 2008? Be specific, please. Otherwise, don't call me out for the sake of calling me out when you can't actually counter my argument with relevant talking points.

 

[El Dude]

Very unfair poll, sir! I shoulda been allowed to tick all options, since all applied today...

The last one is for you, my friend.

But no one voted! Too soon for humor? Is the wound too raw?

To be honest, there's no wound at all. After Oz, I was dopey and stunned for a month, couldn't believe he gets Stan in the final and his back goes. :nono That one left me reeling.

But Rafa isn't playing well so this result isn't a shock. However - if he loses in Barcelona, I'm calling a crisis meeting and I want Clay Death and all the experts to be there!

From what I've seen, he just seems a bit lack-lustre. I've made this comment before, but it seems to me that Rafa's performance goes in cycles where he rises to extreme heights then falls, whether due to injury or perhaps this time, ennui or lack of motivation. I don't claim to be able to read his mind, but he just doesn't seem as intensely focused as he did, say, a year ago. Maybe he's one of those guys that performs better when he's on the rise rather than maintaining a high peak.

Vitriolic rampage

To quote Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure: "Whoa."

To quote Stripes, "Lighten up, Francis!"